Palestinians are given the choice: Starvation or risk being shot, according to major humanitarian organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and Israeli organizations Yesh Din and Combatants for Peace, as we read in Haaretz:
“Today, Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” said the statement, which was signed by such organizations as Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, Save the Children and Amnesty International. “The weeks following the launch of the Israeli distribution scheme have been some of the deadliest and most violent since October 2023.”
The statement noted that over 500 Palestinians have been killed and almost 4,000 injured in the process of accessing necessities at the four GHF distribution sites.
“Israeli forces and armed group, some reportedly operating with backing from Israeli authorities, now routinely open fire on desperate civilians risking everything just to survive,” it said. It asserts that children are harmed in more than half of the attacks on civilians at these sites.
“With Gaza’s healthcare system in ruins, many of those shot are left to bleed out alone, beyond the reach of ambulances and denied lifesaving medical care.”
The NGOs quoted the Sphere Foundation, which authored the handbook considered the international standard for humanitarian principles, as stating that the GHF’s activities appear to fall outside recognized humanitarian principles.
“States must reject the false choice between deadly, military-controlled food distributions and total denial of aid. States must uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, including prohibitions on forced displacement, indiscriminate attacks, and obstruction of humanitarian aid. States must ensure accountability for grave violations of international law,” the statement read.
Several Israeli organizations, including Combatants for Peace, Yesh Din, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights Israel were among the signatories. Many of the groups that issued the statement were involved in aid distribution in Gaza before the Israel-Hamas war.
Just to remind you of what these organizations are referring to, here are excerpts from an in-depth article by Haaretz. One Israeli soldier told Haaretz:
“It’s a killing field … Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire. … We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces … I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.”
One reservist told Haaretz of the dystopian nightmare:
“Gaza doesn’t interest anyone anymore … ”It’s become a place with its own set of rules. The loss of human life means nothing. It’s not even an ‘unfortunate incident,’ like they used to say.”
Another officer said:
“Working with a civilian population when your only means of interaction is opening fire – that’s highly problematic, to say the least … It’s neither ethically nor morally acceptable for people to have to reach, or fail to reach, a [humanitarian zone] under tank fire, snipers and mortar shells.”
The Haaretz report also spoke of how private contractors getting paid by Israel to demolish houses for roughly $1,500 per house, and these contractors getting close to the Palestinians coming for food, prompting the IDF to open fire on the crowds:
“Today, any private contractor working in Gaza with engineering equipment receives 5,000 [roughly $1,500] shekels for every house they demolish … They’re making a fortune. From their perspective, any moment where they don’t demolish houses is a loss of money, and the forces have to secure their work. The contractors, who act like a kind of sheriff, demolish wherever they want along the entire front. … In order [for the contractors] to protect themselves, a shooting incident breaks out, and people are killed … These are areas where Palestinians are allowed to be – we’re the ones who moved closer and decided [they] endangered us. So, for a contractor to make another 5,000 shekels and take down a house, it’s deemed acceptable to kill people who are only looking for food.”
The horror speaks for itself.