Searching for food in Gaza turns into a deadly race among flying bullets

“In Gaza, aid distribution has become a death trap. Mass casualties including scores of injured and killed among starving civilians due to gunshots this morning. This is according to reports from international medics on ground,” posted Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), after learning that at least 31 people were killed and around 200 injured this Sunday morning in a new attack against the civilian population.

The incident, attributed to the Israeli army, took place near one of the distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private group backed by Israel and the United States, in Rafah, in the south of the enclave, according to a statement from the Islamist group Hamas. Israel has denied involvement and blamed Hamas for the shooting.

In addition, another person was killed and 32 others were injured at another aid distribution point on the Wadi Gaza Bridge, the militia added in its report. In total, according to its figures, in the six days since the chaotic start of the aid distribution by this foundation, which is operating outside the United Nations aid system, 49 people seeking food were killed and more than 300 were injured.

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories issued a statement this afternoon stating that in the early hours of June 1, its 60-bed field hospital in Rafah “received a massive casualty influx of 179 cases, including women and children.” It added: “The majority suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds. 21 patients were declared dead on arrival.”

According to the NGO’s account, all the patients it treated in this incident stated that they were attacked while trying to reach an aid distribution site. “This is the highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident since the establishment of the field hospital over a year ago,” the statement adds. “It far surpassed the capacity of the hospital.”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis treated patients with serious injuries on Sunday. “They had visible bullet wounds on their limbs and blood-soaked clothes,” says Nour Alsaqa, communications officer for the NGO. “They looked shattered and distressed after trying to get food for their children, returning wounded and empty-handed.”

According to testimony collected by MSF, Mansour Sami Abdi, a father of four, described the chaos: “People fought over five pallets. They told us to take food and then fired from all sides. I ran 200 meters before I realized I had been shot. This is not help. It’s a lie. We’re supposed to go get food for our children and die?”

For its part, the GHF asserted this morning that it was “false” that incidents had occurred at the distribution points. The Israeli army announced, however, that it would investigate, and published its findings in the afternoon: “Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false.” The army urged the media to be “cautious about information published by the terrorist organization.”

The military statement asserts that the Israeli army is cooperating with the American civilian organization and international aid organizations to facilitate distribution, preventing aid from falling into the hands of Hamas. The IDF accuses the Islamist militant group of “doing everything possible to undermine” its food distribution efforts.

Later, Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, posted a message on his X account blaming the Palestinian militia for the shootings and offering a video showing a person pointing a long-range weapon at others, but which could not be independently verified.

The aid distribution system allowed by Israel in Gaza is “humiliating,” in Lazzarini’s words. The entire population of Gaza, 2.1 million people, is on the brink of famine, in addition to lacking adequate medical care, clean water, and shelter due to the lack of basic supplies. For more than two months, Israel completely blocked the entry of any supplies. On May 18, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government announced it was reopening the door to aid trucks. Since then, barely a hundred trucks have entered each day, far below the 600 that the U.N. estimates are needed daily to cover basic needs.

The UN has denounced in recent days that Israel is obstructing the distribution of this meager amount of aid. It does so by delaying the issuance of permits and proposing “inappropriate routes” that do not guarantee the safety of operations.

The obstacles to delivering large-scale assistance to the population make the GHF distribution points virtually the only places where the hungry population can obtain food boxes. However, their location forces thousands of desperate people to walk tens of kilometers to an area virtually pulverized by heavy Israeli army bombardment.

Alarms in Israel

On the day the Jewish population celebrated the holiday of Shavuot on Sunday, commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, alarms sounded across Israel when the army reported that a missile had been launched from Yemen.

Meanwhile, bombing has continued on the Strip—where nearly 54,500 people have died since the start of the Israeli military invasion—and negotiations to reach a ceasefire continue. Israel and Hamas blame each other for the failure of the latest Arab and U.S. mediation attempt to secure a 60-day truce that would include the release of 18 live Israeli hostages and 10 dead ones out of the 59 remaining Hamas hostages in Gaza, in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli jails, and the necessary aid inflow.

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