Wednesday briefing: What three deadly days for civilians in Rafah reveal about the food distribution system backed by Israel

The Guardian

3 days ago

Good morning. On Sunday, at least 31 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire at a food distribution centre in Rafah, Gaza. On Monday, another three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire at the same site. And yesterday, 27 people were killed after Israeli forces opened fire again.
If there was any doubt at all about the inadequacy of the new system for distributing supplies in Gaza, run by an Israeli-backed foundation rather than the UN or aid organisations, it has surely been dispelled. Last night, the foundation said that all of its sites would be closed today – and appointed a new executive chairman: an evangelical Christian pastor and loyal ally of Donald Trump.
Palestinians – or those who are able to get to the sites – now face an impossible choice, as the UN's human rights chief, Volker Türk, said on Tuesday: 'Die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available.' The attacks on civilians, he added, constitute a war crime.
Today's newsletter, with Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organisations Network in Gaza City, explains what we know about these incidents – and why Palestinians are bound to keep coming back. Here are the headlines.
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Last week, a food point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) opened for the first time. As crowds broke through fencing around the site, Israeli forces started firing what were described as 'warning shots'. At least one person died.
You can read more about the genesis of the GHF and how it compares with the normal aid model in last Thursday's First Edition. What is now clear is that the chaos on the first day was not an artefact of how new the scheme was – but a warning of much worse to come.
What do we know about the incidents in recent days?
All three incidents unfolded in the same area, near the Al-Alam roundabout, about a kilometre from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centre in Rafah. The Israeli military is not present on the GHF site itself – where armed American contractors are in charge – but it controls the surrounding areas.
On Sunday, rescuers and witnesses said Israeli forces opened fire as people congregated before going to pick up food parcels. Israel denied firing 'near or within' the site, but an Israeli military source later acknowledged that 'warning shots were fired towards several suspects' about a kilometre away. The GHF denied that there were any 'injuries, fatalities or incidents' during its operations. Gaza's civil defence agency reported that 31 people were killed, with another 176 wounded.
On Monday, the military again acknowledged firing warning shots towards 'suspects who advanced toward the troops and posed a threat to them'. Three people were killed, said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and dozens more injured.
On Tuesday, eyewitnesses said that the shooting started at about 4am local time, as crowds started to gather in the hope of getting food before the centre ran out for the day. Mohammed al-Shaer told AFP that 'the Israeli army fired shots into the air, then began shooting directly at the people', with a helicopter and drones present as the crowd approached a barrier separating them from the Israeli forces. Another witness, Neima al-Aaraj, told the Associated Press that the shooting was 'indiscriminate'.
The IDF said 'suspects' failed to retreat after warning fire and 'additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced towards the troops'. A statement claimed that they were not following 'designated access routes' to the GHF site. The GHF says civilians should arrive via a single coastal road, a route that one expert told the BBC was neither 'safe nor effective'.
Local health officials put the death toll at 27 so far, including at least three children. Mohammed Saqr, the head of nursing at Nasser hospital, which received the bodies, told the Guardian that they had shrapnel wounds which appeared consistent with being targeted by tanks or artillery.
Given the very large numbers of desperate people seeking food, it is not surprising if order breaks down around the centre. But the implication of Israel's stance – that its forces were in serious danger if they did not act – is hard to credit given their authority around the site, Amjad Al-Shawa said. 'This is happening in an area entirely under the control of the Israeli military. They have troops, they have quadcopters, they have intelligence. In these circumstances there is no justification for the killing.'
What do these events suggest about how the GHF system is working?
Accounts from the scene suggest that besides the conduct of the Israeli forces, there are a number of factors exacerbating the situation.
Food is reportedly running out very early each day, adding to the chaos as people desperately try to secure supplies for themselves and their families. Even if all of the GHF sites were opened, large numbers of people needing support would be congregating in a very few places; with only one site up and running since Friday and only one access route allowed, that effect is exacerbated.
Then there is the sheer physical difficulty of the journey for those living further away. 'It takes three or four hours to reach the distribution point from here,' said Al-Shawa, who is in Gaza City, in the north of Gaza.
'Most people are going on foot, or paying a lot of money to use a donkey cart. And when you get there it is not an easy mission. There are tens of thousands of people waiting to get a very limited amount of food parcels, and so there is a rush. There is no system – they just open the gate and tell people to go. The mechanism excludes older people, women with children, the sick, people with disabilities.'
Images from the site show that most of those who have been waiting are young men – perhaps more likely to be deemed 'suspects' by the IDF if the crowd gets out of control.
Is the amount of food being distributed adequate to the task?
GHF says it has distributed just over 7m meals so far. It says that it will continue to ramp up its operations in the days ahead. But last night it said that all of its distribution centres would be closed today for 'update, organisation, and efficiency improvement work'. The Israeli military said that while the sites are closed, the areas leading to them will be considered 'combat zones'.
The fact that food is running out so early each day is testament to how badly supply is outstripped by desperate demand. As of 12 May, almost all of the population of about 2.1 million were facing acute hunger, according to Unicef; one in five were facing starvation, and about 71,000 children and 17,000 mothers needed urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.
Al-Shawa says he is relatively fortunate, because he can afford the extortionate price of basic provisions, at least for now. 'But I'm part of this community,' he said. 'There is almost nothing available. My wife bought 250g of sugar yesterday for about $18. A kilo of flour, to make some bread, for $16. You need cash to pay for it, and you pay 35 or 40% commission. So for me to eat a salad will cost $40 or $50.'
Nor, he emphasised, was Gaza facing a hunger crisis – or even Israel's continuing military onslaught – in isolation. 'It's not just the denial of aid. It's not just sanitation. It's not just the lack of water. It's not just the denial of vaccines. It's not just displacement. It's not just chronic patients without medicine. It's not just 80% of hospitals destroyed. It's all of those things together.'
Is there any reason to hope that the process will improve?
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While the GHF has sought to emphasise the amount of food it has distributed so far, there are reasons to be sceptical that it will soon be able to start running the sites in a more orderly way.
Its founding executive director, Jake Wood, quit last week, saying that it could not operate in a way that followed 'humanitarian principles'; yesterday, he was replaced by Reverend Dr Johnnie Moore - who was appointed as a commissioner for international religious freedom by Donald Trump, but has no apparent experience of complex aid operations. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that Boston Consulting Group, which helped design the programme, had withdrawn its team working in Tel Aviv. Sources close to the operation told the Post that 'it would be difficult for the foundation to continue to function without the consultants who helped create it'.
As the situation worsens, Israel is facing growing diplomatic pressure from Europe, the UK, and Canada. But there has not yet been the kind of concrete action that might force Israel to reconsider – while the Trump administration continues to offer its unflagging support, and will likely veto a UN security council resolution demanding unfettered access for aid operations today.
In those circumstances, it is difficult to see how the situation on the ground will improve. 'People have no option but to keep coming,' Al-Shawa said. 'They will be back tomorrow in search of food. But they will pay a price to get it, and the price is in lives.'
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