‘A death journey' for Palestinians desperately seeking aid at GHF sites

Al Jazeera

4 days ago

Starvation is spreading across the Gaza Strip, and the only organisation on the ground mandated to provide food aid stands accused of grave rights violations and the targeting of civilians.
The controversial United States and Israel-backed GHF took over aid distribution in Gaza in May, after Israel eased its total blockade of the Strip.
Since then, the United Nations says, more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed trying to reach food.
Many have been purposefully shot by Israeli soldiers or US security contractors hired by GHF, according to testimonies from whistleblowers published in the media.
Still, in desperation to get any food they can to ensure survival, thousands of Palestinians brave the GHF sites every day.
Al Jazeera spoke to mothers, fathers and children who said they saw soldiers open fire on aid seekers amid chaotic scenes as hungry people scrambled for flour and milk.
'What can I do?'
The struggle trying to get food from a GHF-run distribution point in Gaza is 'a death journey', said one Palestinian woman, who we are not naming for her safety.
'I need to provide for my girls,' the woman, a mother of two, said. 'I don't have anyone to support me.'
In her desperation, she visits the aid sites.
There, the aid retrieval process is a violent scramble where only those who dare to push deep into the crowd return with anything, she said.
'There are children who worked hard to get [aid], and men come to take it from them.'
After putting herself at risk, the woman left the aid site with only rice, cooking oil and a can of tomatoes, she said.
Still, 'it's a blessing from God', she added, despite having hurt her arm after being hit in the crowd.
A child speaking to Al Jazeera told of how going to a GHF site was his only option.
'I am going to get food for my siblings. My father was martyred. If I didn't go to bring it, my siblings would die from hunger. What can I do?' he asked.
But at the distribution site, he said he saw hundreds of starving Palestinians shot dead.
'Shooting, killing, death'
A Palestinian man, Ibrahim Mekki, from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, said he waited at least six hours and risked being shot by Israeli forces just to end up with a few bags of pasta.
'Shooting, killing, death, destruction and martyrs,' he said of the scene. 'And for what? Just to get a little food.
'It's a trap, a game … Letting you move a little, then opening fire.'
Mekki said an 'enormous' number of people had congregated at the aid site he went to, but he estimated just 5 percent succeeded in retrieving anything of value.
'Look at me, what did I get? Nothing,' he said, revealing two small bags of pasta and a bag of bulgur.
'It's not enough to feed the kids for a single day. I'm forced to go back every single day to try again.'
'He died in my arms'
Another man, Rakan Jneid, told Al Jazeera he saw people rushing towards aid trucks near a distribution point – and some of them were run over.
'Today, milk came in and people started fighting each other to take the milk,' Jneid said. 'The Israelis opened fire to take advantage of the situation.'
Another Palestinian, Muhannad Abu Jarad, also described seeing the Israeli army 'shooting at us'.
Separately, a mother of eight told Al Jazeera that her five-month-old daughter is malnourished because she was not getting enough food during pregnancy.
She had already lost her fourth child to malnutrition, she said.
'My fourth kid died … He was severely malnourished. We couldn't provide food for him or provide anything for the child to eat,' she said. 'He died in my arms as I was taking him to the hospital.'