Gaza aid distribution sites are ‘death traps', warns MSF, as Cork refugee shares family's plight

Irish Examiner

3 days ago

Dead bodies, many shot in the head or stomach as they reached out for food, now lie uncollected for weeks at 'aid' delivery sites, decomposing under the bright Gazan sun.
'It's too dangerous to collect them,' Cork chef, Gazan refugee, and UCC student Habib Al Ostaz said.
'They think 'if I go to move him I'll die next to him.' Bodies are now left there for weeks.
'At first, if someone was injured, people would rush to help. If someone died, their body would be taken.
Habib Alostaz, manager and chef, next to a map of Palestine in Izz Café, Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane
'But now, when someone is injured trying to get aid, people just care about what food aid they can get themselves. People are so hungry and desperate.'
On Thursday, medical aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) described the food distribution sites as 'orchestrated killing.'
A new report by MSF found 'both targeted and indiscriminate violence by Israeli forces and private American contractors against starved Palestinians at food distribution sites run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).'
MSF has called for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme and the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism.
A Palestinian carries the body of a man killed while trying to receive aid near a distribution center operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Netzarim, in the Gaza Strip.
In May, Israeli authorities sought to dismantle the UN-led humanitarian response and replace it with a militarised food distribution scheme operated by GHF. All four GHF-run distribution sites are in areas under full Israeli military control, and 'secured' by private American armed contractors, the report noted.
MSF also called on governments, especially the United States, as well as private donors, to suspend all financial and political support for the GHF, "whose sites are essentially death traps."
Between June 7 and July 24, 2025, 1,380 casualties, including 28 dead, were received at MSF's Al-Mawasi and Al-Attar clinics in southern Gaza, located near the GHF-run distribution sites.
'During those seven weeks, our teams treated 71 children for gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under the age of 15. Faced with no alternatives to find food, starved families frequently send teenage boys into this lethal environment, as they are often the only males in the household physically able to make the journey," the report said.
Patients also included a 12-year-old boy hit by a bullet that had passed all the way through his abdomen, and five young girls, one of whom was only eight years old and suffered a gunshot wound to her chest, the MSF report said.
'Children shot in the chest while reaching for food. People crushed or suffocated in stampedes. Entire crowds gunned down at distribution points,' Raquel Ayora, MSF General Director said.
In MSF's nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians
'The GHF distribution sites masquerading as 'aid' have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,' Ms Ayora said.
'This must stop now.'
Speaking from Cork, Mr Al Ostaz questioned what kind of aid GHF was delivering when so many are being killed when trying to access food.
He cannot listen to his family's voices anymore, they are so weakened by starvation.
'If you heard them, you would cry,' he said.
Palestinians rush to collect humanitarian aid airdropped by parachutes into Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip.
Although his father narrowly escaped almost certain death in an airstrike on an aid delivery point earlier this summer, the family was so hungry that they have had to return to the aid delivery sites.
'They just want to eat. The children just want to eat," Mr Al Ostaz said.
A kilo bag of flour now costs €60. There is no cash left in ATMs so dealers take 50% commission for giving out any cash from online bank transfers.
'And even if you have money, there's nothing to buy. The markets are empty.'
Sometimes, his family grinds lentils to use as a flour to make bread. But this causes some of his family extreme stomach pain.
His 45-year-old mother has cancer. Habib and his brother have appealed to the Irish State and the Red Cross to evacuate her for medical treatment in Ireland.
But their pleas have gone unanswered.
'We applied one-and-a-half years ago but have no updates on it."
Because Mr Al Ostaz does not currently have refugee status in Ireland they did not qualify, he was told.
Living in their partially bombed home in northern Gaza, his family can no longer work to rebuild it.
Exhausted, their days are now spent searching for food and water and gathering wood to make a fire to cook on.
'It's like they've gone back to the stone age,' Mr Al Ostaz said.
Just last week, their neighbour's home was bombed and a deadly fire gutted the building.
All six members of the family were killed, including three young children. The youngest was just two years old.
The pain in Mr Al Ostaz's voice is awfully audible as he speaks about the tragedy and shares a video of the raging fire which trapped the young family inside their home.
'Dad went to try to save them but the whole family was burned. They were our neighbours. They lived 10m away," he said.
'Imagine if that bomb went to my family.'
Habib turned 29 this week but he did not celebrate it.
'I didn't want a celebration. I didn't want gifts. I can't celebrate while my family and so many other people are starving.'
Palestinians rush to collect humanitarian aid airdropped by parachutes into Gaza City.
The 22-month war has been so relentless in its horror that it leaves no time to process the constant march of tragedies, he said.
'You can't catch the feeling from yesterday, you just have to prepare yourself for the next catastrophe.'
He used to dream of meeting his family and hugging them. Now, his biggest dream is that they will stay alive and get enough food to avoid starvation.
He used to hope for a good education for his siblings, the youngest of whom is aged five. 'But now I just want them to live and survive,' he said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel intends to take military control of the entire Gaza Strip, drawing condemnation both internationally and within Israel.
Military officials in Israel have warned that such an escalation of the war would risk hostages' lives.
On Friday, Israel's political-security cabinet approved a plan to take control of Gaza City, as the country expands its military operations, however, this plan stopped short of Netanyahu's call for a full takeover of the besieged strip.
Any full-scale military takeover of Gaza will cause more deaths and suffering and must be halted immediately, the United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said.
But Israel's threats to taken over the entire strip do not feel new or surprising, Mr Al Ostaz said.
'Since 1948 [when the State of Israel was formed and more than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced] we have seen this.
'They only know about occupying lands from the Palestinians.
'This is not new.
'We need him to stop this war, to stop sending weapons.
'20,000 children have been killed in Gaza.
'Children are starving, being maimed and murdered. But countries still keep sending arms to Israel.
'What kind of world are we living in?
'Children have been left with no hands, no legs, no water, no education.
'Everyone knows what's going on but they don't do anything about it.
'There has been talk of recognising a Palestinian state. But it's just speeches and useless words when these countries are still sending weapons to Israel."