[News] Palestinian women were told to go to U.S.-run aid sites in Gaza. They were killed and beaten instead

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net 
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/palestinian-women-were-told-to-go-to-u-s-run-aid-sites-in-gaza-they-were-killed-and-beaten-instead-eyewitnesses-say/?ml_recipient=160898657981302670&ml_link=160898595020604915&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-07-25&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation> 



  Palestinian women were told to go to U.S.-run aid sites in Gaza. They
  were killed and beaten instead

Tareq S. Hajjaj
July 24, 2025
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240725_Khan_Yunis_AAT_001-scaled.jpg
Palestinian women come back from GHF distribution center in southern 
Gaza, where eyewitnesses say GHF staff pepper-sprayed the aid-seekers 
and beat them with batons, July 24, 2025. (Photo: Abdallah Alattar/APA 
Images)

In an unusual move since it first began operations, the Gaza 
Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announced 
<https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16np2tcxNN/> on its Facebook page that 
aid distribution would today be exclusively for women. The distribution 
was supposed to be carried out at two locations in southern Gaza: the 
Saudi neighborhood in Rafah and the city of Khan Younis. The GHF’s call 
instructed women in Gaza to head to these points at 9:00 a.m.

“Our local team will guide women to a designated area where each will 
receive a box,” the GHF said in its announcement in Arabic, accompanied 
by what appears to be an AI-generated photo of smiling male GHF workers 
holding boxes and welcoming a group of women approaching them. “Men are 
requested to avoid the site during this distribution,” the statement added.

But when the women arrived, GHF personnel attacked them with 
pepper-spray and batons, while Israeli military vehicles opened fire 
with bullets over their heads, eyewitnesses said in testimonies obtained 
by /Mondoweiss/. One woman who was at the site says she witnessed a GHF 
worker beating a pregnant woman on her stomach. Other eyewitnesses 
reported to local journalists that two women were shot dead by the 
Israeli army and several others were injured.

As of the time of writing, Gaza’s Ministry of Health has not published a 
detailed report about the incident, but has issued a separate statement 
confirming two deaths due to malnutrition within the last 24 hours.

The women came from all over southern Gaza — al-Nuseirat, Deir al-Balah, 
Khan Younis, Rafah, and al-Mawasi — flocking to the Saudi neighborhood 
location in Rafah, which is under the complete control of the Israeli 
military. The distribution point is located at least five kilometers 
from the nearest inhabited area, meaning that any woman reaching the 
location and carrying a food box weighing at least ten kilograms would 
have to walk back five kilometers while suffering from exhaustion 
brought on by malnutrition.

Footage obtained by /Mondoweiss/ shows tens of thousands of exhausted 
and hungry women walking in visible fatigue and exhaustion, nearly 
collapsing as they make their way to collect food. Some are dragging 
their children along with them.

According to several testimonies relayed to local journalists, the GHF 
entirely disregarded these circumstances and seemed more concerned with 
capturing images of its personnel distributing boxes as evidence of its 
“humanitarian mission,” the eyewitnesses said.

Testimonies suggest that what happened to the women mirrored previous 
incidents involving men attempting to collect food, in which the GHF has 
been accused of luring 
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/gazan-aid-seekers-sniped-in-the-head-at-ghf-distribution-center-witnesses-say/> 
people to its distribution points, where Israeli forces then carry out 
what many describe as “aid massacres 
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/06/theres-a-familiar-script-israel-uses-every-time-it-commits-an-aid-massacre-in-gaza/>” 
under the guise of humanitarian distribution.

The number of Palestinians that Israeli forces have targeted in or near 
the GHF distribution centers has surpassed 1,000 killed, and over 6,011  
injured since last May, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.

Palestinian women come back from GHF distribution center in southern 
Gaza, where eyewitnesses say GHF staff pepper-sprayed the aid-seekers 
and beat them with batons, July 24, 2025. (Photo: Abdallah Alattar/APA 
Images)Palestinian women say they were pepepr-sprayed by GHF staff and 
beaten with batons, while the Israeli army opened fire over their heads. 
(Photo: Abdallah Alattar/APA Images)


    *‘She screamed that she was pregnant, but no one listened’*

Raghad Abu Odeh, an aid-seeker from today’s incident, arrived at the 
site at 5:00 a.m. from Deir al-Balah. “I belong to a family of nine 
daughters and one brother,” she says. “My father was shot in the head at 
one of the aid centers weeks ago. He is now bedridden and immobile. When 
we heard that the distribution was for women only, I walked to the 
location to get food. But I did not witness any food distribution — it 
was a distribution of death.”

“The American organization said the distribution would be organized and 
safe, and that every woman would receive an aid box,” Abu Odeh 
continued. “We went there immediately, because we are dying of hunger 
every day. But we arrived only to see the Palestinian woman being 
humiliated — beaten, sprayed with pepper, struck with batons, and 
bullets fired over our heads.”

Abu Odeh says that shortly after arriving at the distribution center, 
Israeli tanks and armored vehicles that had been stationed outside the 
center advanced toward them, opening heavy machine gun fire overhead 
their heads. “Then there were tear gas canisters launched among us, and 
stun grenades thrown directly at us,” she recounts.

“They brought us here to openly humiliate us. I didn’t receive any food. 
Many of the women who came didn’t receive any food. Maybe 20 percent of 
those who arrived got something. The rest were subjected to humiliation 
and oppression,” she continues.

Palestinian women come back from GHF distribution center in southern 
Gaza, where eyewitnesses say GHF staff pepper-sprayed the aid-seekers 
and beat them with batons, July 24, 2025. (Photo: Abdallah Alattar/APA 
Images)Odeh says that “maybe 20 percent” received aid at the GHF site. 
(Photo: Abdallah Alattar/APA Images)

Abu Odeh describes seeing a pregnant woman “struggling and bleeding” in 
the middle of the crowd, “due to the chaos and fear of being shot.” She 
then says that one of the GHF’s staff members “hit her multiple times on 
her stomach with a baton.”

“She screamed that she was pregnant, but no one listened. Instead, they 
hit her more until she collapsed to the ground. Some women managed to 
pull her away, and she was taken to a hospital,” Abu Odeh explains.

Abu Odeh also describes how the GHF employees pepper-sprayed women in 
the face “until it burned,” and also recounts the use of “obscene 
insults” that were hurled at them by GHF staff that spoke in Arabic. 
“Why were we called to this? To be humiliated in every possible way?” 
Abu Odeh says. “We don’t want their aid. We want them to shut down this 
place and for food distribution to return to what it was before this 
organization and its lethal weapons arrived — it doesn’t feed us, it 
kills us.”

“Let them kill us all at once and end this tragedy, or let them find 
another way,” Abu Odeh continues. “Open the crossings and allow food in 
through humanitarian means that do not degrade our dignity. We are 
tired. Tired of hunger, betrayal, and oppression. We cannot bear any more.”

“Is there a mother anywhere in the world who can feel what the 
Palestinian mother feels, she who used to be the symbol of dignity, 
strength, and resilience?” Abu Odeh reflects. “Is this what she has been 
reduced to now? We now live on water and salt to keep our intestines 
from decaying.”

“That’s all we have — water and salt,” she adds.

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