Israel kills 10 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza in 48 hours
At least 10 Palestinians desperately seeking aid from a contentious and heavily criticised United States-backed organisation have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza over the last 48 hours, according to the besieged enclave’s Government Media Office.
In a statement, the Government Media Office said Israeli forces “opened direct fire on hungry Palestinian civilians who had gathered to receive aid” at the distribution site, wounding at least 62 people.
Harrowing video showed thousands of starving Palestinians rushing to get aid, with many of them herded into cage-like lines, from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution point in Rafah in southern Gaza.
The initiative has been widely condemned by UN officials and the humanitarian community, who have repeatedly said that life-saving aid could be adequately and safely scaled up in Gaza if Israel would allow access to aid and let those organisations that have decades of experience handle the flow.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, said Israel was using “aid as a weapon of war”.
Visual guide to how the Gaza aid distribution turmoil unfolded
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2025/5/29/visual-guide-to-how-the-gaza-aid-distribution-turmoil-unfolded
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, thousands of starving people made the long journey to south Gaza, many walking tens of kilometres in the scorching summer heat to reach a newly established aid distribution centre run by the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Among them was Walaa Abu Sa’da (35), mother of three children who decided to go to Rafah by herself.
“My children were on the verge of starving. No milk, no food, not even baby formula. They cried day and night, and I had to beg neighbours for scraps,” Abu Sa’da told Al Jazeera.
While the previous United Nations-led distribution network operated about 400 sites across the Strip, the GHF, guarded by armed private security contractors working for a US company, has set up only four “mega-sites” for Gaza’s population of about two million Palestinians.
Chaos has erupted as troops fired on desperate aid seekers near several of these sites over the past few days, killing at least 10 people.
Witnesses described a slow and tightly controlled entry process, with people funnelled through narrow fenced corridors that resembled cattle chutes.
Once inside the distribution area, people were subjected to ID checks and eye scans to determine who was permitted to receive aid.
As crowds grew restless while waiting in the heat, people began pushing forward, eventually breaking through the fences. The scene turned chaotic as people surged towards the aid parcels, desperately trying to seize whatever they could, causing the security personnel to flee.
“Crowds surged in - thousands of people. There was no order at all,” Jehad al-Assar, 31, told Al Jazeera. “People rushed towards the yard where aid boxes were stacked and moved into the inner hall, where there were more supplies.
“It was chaos - a real struggle. Men, women, children, all crammed together, pushing to grab whatever they could. No queues, no system - just hunger and disorder,” al-Assar added.From a distance, plumes of dust could be seen as people rushed to grab whatever they could. Israel has not allowed food into the Strip for nearly three months, adding to people's desperation.
(That's supposed to last a family for a week...)
Despite the GHF saying it distributed 8,000 food boxes on Tuesday, amounting to 462,000 meals, Al Jazeera correspondent Hind al-Khourdary said the rations would do little to sustain families for long.
Khoudary described a typical box with 4kg (8.8lb) of flour, a couple of bags of pasta, two cans of fava beans, a pack of tea bags and some biscuits. Other food parcels contained lentils and soup in small quantities.
Water is scarce and electricity is almost non-existent in Gaza, making it nearly impossible for people to use the limited supplies they manage to obtain.
Reporting live from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum explained that it is “impossible to cook any dry food in Gaza - including lentils, rice, or even pasta - without having water".
"And if you had water, you would also need electricity or a fuel source, which have both been completely cut off entirely from Gaza," he said.
