The US-Israeli aid system in Gaza: a death trap for Palestinians

BarcelonaThe Israeli army has killed at least 27 people waiting to collect humanitarian aid at a distribution point in Rafah, in southern Gaza, in the last few hours. They were "suspects" who had strayed from the marked path. However, with this attack, at least 102 people have been killed and 490 injured in the first eight days of operation of the food distribution points of the new mechanism implemented by the United States and Israel in the Gaza Strip, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The UN has already called for an independent investigation into the massacres.

The chaos and murders at the four GHF aid distribution points are not an accident, but another embodiment of a policy of extermination of Palestinians. The land of March is closed after 20 months of indiscriminate bombing. After almost three months of total blockade, the Netanyahu government announced on May 19 that it would allow a "minimal amount of aid" into the Strip due to international pressure. Exterminating and starving due to the destruction of local crop fields and livestock, the GHF has opened only four food distribution points, run by American mercenary companies. Aid for disaster. Not only hygienic, but also deadly: Gazans already refer to the distribution points as "death points."

"This is not aid, it is state violence disguised as humanitarianism," Alwahab Hamad, a humanitarian worker at the United Nations, which is the only one with the experience, personnel, and resources to respond to the humanitarian crisis, denounces in ARA from the center of the Gaza Strip. "It is a system designed for control. GHF is punishment disguised as charity," he adds. People are starving, and if they overflow the distribution centers, it is not because they are violent, but because they do not want to see their children starve to death. Israel and the United States use food as a weapon, a weapon to force displacement."

On the ground, witnesses of Israeli violence are gathering at food distribution points. "My brother went to get a box of food to feed his seven children and they wounded him," Yareen Abul-Naja, a woman, told local reporters yesterday outside Nasser Hospital in Gaza. The man had gone to the distribution point in western Rafah, where Israeli forces opened fire. "We had hoped to be able to eat with dignity, but what they give us is only humiliation," she added. The woman also explained that a sack of flour costs 2,200 checks (about 550 euros, the equivalent of a month's salary). "How can you feed seven children?" she asked.

The new food distribution system is therefore carried out under the supervision of American mercenaries—private military contractor companies, heirs of those accused of committing all kinds of massacres and abuses during the occupation of Iraq—at locations located in accordance with the interests of the Israeli military. Hamad warns that "humanitarian aid only works when it is protected, not when it is used politically: that is how hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been able to survive until now. You cannot change a humanitarian system for a military one. Just as you cannot bomb bread ovens and attack humanitarian convoys. And then they blame the victims."

GHF began operating in Gaza eight days ago and has neither the personnel, nor the coordination, nor the knowledge of the humanitarian needs of the population. It was rejected by the UN and more than 200 non-governmental organizations on the ground because it does not meet any of the requirements of a humanitarian agency. "It only pushes civilians into militarized zones under conditions imposed by the Israeli army, where they lock starving people inside areas surrounded by chain-link fences for hours while they wait for aid," the aid worker says.

Even former Marine Jake Wook, whom the Trump administration appointed as director of GHF, resigned last week, stating that "it is impossible to implement this plan and respect the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence." Today, he announced the disengagement of his consultancy, Boston Consulting Group, which participated in the design of the mechanism, and now announces the withdrawal of its team from Tel Aviv.

The precedents

Israel and the United States have been using humanitarian aid as a weapon against the Palestinians in Gaza for decades. They have subjected the Strip to strict blockades for years, and in the current offensive, following the October 7 attacks, we have seen the US parachute in food parcels that killed dozens of Palestinians. We also witnessed the so-called "flour massacre" on February 29 of last year, when 112 Palestinians were killed and 750 wounded when the army fired on the crowd that had gathered around trucks carrying aid. Then there was Biden's initiative to build a dock in Gaza to unload aid, a project involving chef José Andrés's NGO and the Catalan company Open Arms, which was operational for no more than 25 days. The GFH is a further step in dehumanization, humiliation, and the end of the minimum principles of international humanitarian law: it is the Hunger Games from Gaza.