For the third day in a row, deadly mass shootings of civilians in Gaza surrounded the food distribution operation of the U.S.’s so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Fund” (GHF). The spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross Hisham Mhanna said that 184 more casualties arrived today at its field hospital in Rafah and 27 of them have already died. Among the dead are 3 children and 2 women. A dark game has begun, in which the GHF and the Israel Defense Force quibble over what counts as approaching the distribution site vs. being in the distribution site, but the reality is that providing only a fraction of the needed food supply to hundreds of thousands of starving people is intended to pit them as animals against each other.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said “deadly attacks” on civilians around aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip constitute “a war crime…. Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable. For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured.” He called for a prompt and impartial investigation into each attack, and for those responsible to be held to account.
On the first day of the mass shootings, Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) stated: “Today’s events have shown once again that this new system of aid delivery is dehumanising, dangerous and severely ineffective. It has resulted in deaths and injuries of civilians that could have been prevented. Humanitarian aid must be provided only by humanitarian organisations who have the competence and determination to do it safely and effectively.” Rob Williams, the CEO of the rights group, War Child Alliance, said that the scenes in Rafah are a “devastating indictment of a model that should never have existed. Corralling desperate families behind fences and placing aid under armed guard violates not only humanitarian principles but common decency. The true monstrosity of this ugly system lies in the draping of a ‘humanitarian’ disguise over the military deployment of food as a means of displacing a population.”
The IDF said that troops spotted several Palestinian suspects approaching them around 500 meters from the site, and that they were not on the pre-approved path. “The forces fired warning shots, and after they did not disperse, additional fire was carried out next to several suspects who approached the forces.” Apparently, they didn’t shoot at those who approached closer; they just fired “next to” them. Somehow these “warning shots” struck 184 people. Killing at least 27.
