A flawed attempt at delivering Gaza aid led to a wave of deaths

Mint

a day ago

Israeli army officers and American military contractors looked on from their joint operations center late last month with concern. A new attempt to hand out food and other aid to thousands of hungry people in Gaza had just launched, and it was about to be overwhelmed.
A crowd surged through the newly constructed gates at the site in Rafah. Chaos and looting quickly followed.
Some 40 American contractors working for a private security company retreated. Outside the distribution center, Israeli troops opened fire to warn off the crowds. It was the beginning of a cycle of dysfunction and violence that would play out repeatedly over the following days, derailing the latest attempt to get food into the hands of the people who most need it.
The events of May 27 exposed how the Israeli military and the new nongovernment group it is working with, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, were unprepared to deal with wide-scale hunger and desperation in the enclave after a year and a half of war. An Israeli military official said the American contractors made a mistake by withdrawing and allowing the Rafah site to be destroyed. It hasn't reopened since.
A spokesperson from Safe Reach Solutions, a private U.S. company contracted by GHF to secure the aid, said that the retreat followed a protocol designed to safeguard lives. SRS is responsible for securing the aid sites, while the military secures the surrounding area, where the shootings have taken place.
Both sides have complained privately of coordination problems. Two weeks on, the organizers still haven't fully figured out how to make the initiative work.
At least five times last week, Israeli forces fired toward Gazans as they were heading to distribution sites, saying some people had deviated from an approved route and continued to approach troops. Gazan authorities say more than 100 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access aid.
The Israeli military official said the military and the Americans are making improvements as they learn what works on the ground. Coordination and work with the American contractors is improving, the official said.
The aid effort is run by the newly formed GHF, a foundation incorporated in Delaware in February. GHF came to the project without a lot of knowledge about Gaza, according to people familiar with the plan. It is currently led by Evangelical leader Johnnie Moore, a former Trump campaign adviser.
GHF and SRS work closely together with the Israeli military in a handful of joint operation centers in southern Israel staffed by dozens of people at a time. The military shares intelligence with the Americans including details of military operations in the vicinity of the aid sites.
The military and GHF had prepared for smaller crowds than the tens of thousands who have come to the sites, said an Israeli military officer involved in the aid effort. The officer said this expectation was based on Hamas's opposition to the aid plan and the distribution site's distance from al-Mawasi, a tent encampment housing much of Gaza's displaced population.
GHF initially planned to open three sites in southern Gaza and one in central Gaza. SRS stationed a few dozen people at each location including local Gazans to distribute the aid.
It wasn't enough—the food has run out quickly and there is often chaotic overcrowding at sites.
On some days, only one of the four hubs has been operating. And when some sites do open, they usually do so for a limited period, sometimes for 45 minutes in total, before closing when supplies run out.
Gazans who have visited aid sites in the past two weeks say they often try to arrive early at the sites to ensure they get aid before it runs out, even though it isn't permitted.
The Israeli military, GHF and SRS said they had anticipated the size of the large crowds at the sites correctly. 'We knew the need was overwhelming, and we prepared accordingly, expecting turnout beyond what we could service," a spokesperson for SRS said.
Gazans describe chaotic scenes at aid sites, with violence sometimes breaking out over who gets food. An initial plan to employ biometric specialists conducting facial recognition screenings was dropped for the moment as it has proved unfeasible given the large crowds, said one person involved in the operation.
GHF has said it is working to improve its effectiveness. It is piloting a program that will distribute aid directly to communities, rather than making Gazans travel to one of its distribution centers. It is also aiming to open more distribution sites and has created a special lane for accessing aid for women and children.
To date, the group says it has distributed approximately 232,800 boxes of aid.
In recent weeks, hundreds of American contractors, many of them former special forces, have arrived in Israel. They are receiving around $1,000 a day, including on days off, according to people familiar with the matter.
They are housed in several hotels in southern Israel, many sporting arm and leg tattoos, baseball caps and sunglasses. At a hotel in the city of Ashkelon in southern Israel last week, some contractors could be seen carrying mini fridges and rice cookers to their rooms.
Gazans complain of poor communication from GHF and the Israeli military. Operating hours are often changed and announced at the last minute on GHF's Facebook page, which launched on May 28.
In comments on the Facebook page and an official GHF WhatsApp group, Gazans criticize the unfairness of the distribution method, discuss looting by thieves and say they are confused by opening hours.
'Credibility is 0%. This morning you said Netzarim at 6 a.m. Then at 4:30 you said distribution was over," reads one of two dozen angry comments in Arabic on GHF's Facebook page on Monday.
'At times they tell us to return, and that there will be no aid today. And then two hours later they open," said Abdullah Jouda, 24, who has visited aid sites in Rafah in recent days. He said he was fired on as he made his way to an aid site in Rafah on June 1 and watched a person next to him die.
Internal wrangling has been a problem, too. GHF's chief executive stepped down on the day it was supposed to launch, saying he couldn't abandon the humanitarian community's principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence. Boston Consulting Group, which had helped advise on the plan, said last week that it was cutting ties with the initiative and fired two partners after an internal investigation, saying they carried out unauthorized work. Humanitarian groups have refused to join the initiative, saying it puts Palestinians in too much danger by requiring them to travel through a war zone for food and that Israeli military presence near aid sites is dangerous.
Other problems abound. GHF says Hamas has threatened Gazans on the ground who collaborate with the initiative. Israel says efforts by Hamas to disrupt the plan show how Israel is successfully cutting off the ability of the U.S. designated terrorist group to steal aid and sell it to fund its war effort. Hamas denies it steals aid.
The military contractors have at times grown frustrated.
SRS was initially hired by the U.S. and Qatar to guard an Israeli-constructed corridor in Gaza called Netzarim during a cease-fire starting in January. But staff contracts weren't extended as expected after Israel resumed fighting in the enclave in mid-March. This left the company in limbo for weeks, leading many hires to return to the U.S., according to one SRS hire.
By the time SRS learned in the spring that a new contract would start, this time with GHF, they only had a few weeks to hire enough people for the operation, according to the SRS hire. The company had to work fast and launched a LinkedIn hiring campaign for roles such as 'video analyst."
More than 20 countries as well as the European Union and United Nations have criticized the aid plan, saying it unnecessarily puts civilians at risk.
Food and humanitarian goods had entered Gaza since the start of the war via aid groups and the United Nations, which delivered to hundreds of distribution centers throughout the enclave. The Israeli government has repeatedly denounced Hamas for looting U.N. aid shipments, but the U.N. denies the claims.
On the ground in Gaza, meanwhile, many Palestinians are torn between their desperation for food and their concern for their safety as they make their way to distribution sites.
Samaher Abu Audeh, 40, says she worries each morning when her husband, Issa, leaves their tent in al-Mawasi and heads to a distribution center in Rafah. She sometimes asks him not to go, but he insists as he must feed their five children. On Monday morning she prayed again he would return safely.
'May God ease his way and bring him back safely today," she said. 'Maybe he'll bring flour, so I can bake for the kids. Hunger is killing them."
Write to Anat Peled at [e-mail]