[News] For most Gazans, staying hungry is better than risking life to get aid

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  For most Gazans, staying hungry is better than risking life to get aid


      By Motasem A Dalloul <https://english.palinfo.com/?p=250385>

Tuesday 24-June-2025 - 
https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/for-most-gazans-staying-hungry-is-better-than-risking-life-to-get-aid/

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After more than 100 days of complete Israeli ban on the entry of aid and 
goods into the Gaza Strip, Gaza residents are left with no choice except 
risking their life to get some food for their hungry children from the 
American-Israeli aid distribution centers located in a few points in the 
southern parts of the war-torn enclave.

Everything in Gaza, including food, water and medical supplies has run 
out. Fuel used to operate water and sewage pumps, hospitals trucks and 
vehicles used to remove tons of garbage accumulated in the middle of 
concentration camps has also run out.

There is nothing in Gaza except continuous Israeli bombing of civilians, 
homes, healthcare centers, schools, displacement camps and tents, 
communication facilities and water networks. In Gaza, people lose family 
members every minute.

“The Israeli occupation forces kill an average of one person every 15 
minutes, a child every 20 minutes and a woman every 40 minutes,” 
Director of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr Moneer al 
Borsh, has said. This is beside the deaths that result from malnutrition 
and dehydration.

Amidst this dreadful reality, fathers in Gaza find themselves obliged to 
walk long distances on foot and risk their life in order to reach the 
US-Israeli aid distribution centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian 
Foundation (GHF) in order to get some food for their children starved by 
the Israeli occupation that is backed by the US and most Arab and 
Western powers.

Getting a little amount of food from any of these aid centers is 
extremely dangerous and lethal as the crowds of starving fathers come 
under live Israeli tank and gunfire. Tens of them get killed and 
hundreds are wounded every time they try to reach these aid centers. 
Sometimes, the Israeli occupation forces use quadcopter drones to drop 
small bombs over the heads of starving aid seekers or fire artillery 
shells on them, tearing them into pieces.

Ahmad Yassin, a 35-year-old father of seven children and a husband of 
cancer patient wife, gave me a horrible account for his journey from the 
Gaza City to Rafah as he travelled 40 kilometers on foot to get food.

“I agreed with a number of relatives and friends to travel to Rafah and 
get food from the US-Israeli aid distribution center located in the west 
of destroyed city. Everyone had two liters of drinking water in his back 
pack and started our journey at 12pm. We walked together through the 
coastal road, which had been destroyed by the Israeli occupation 
forces,” Yassin said.

The Israeli occupation forces allow only animal carts and motorcycles to 
move between the southern and northern parts of the occupied Gaza Strip. 
People have to pay high transportation fares to use these means 
otherwise they move between both sides of Gaza walking on foot.

“We arrived in Rafah after a 10-hour-walk,” Yassin said, “and everything 
was alright, but when we were about three kilometers away from the aid 
distribution center, we started to walk amidst rubble of destroyed 
homes, and the Israeli occupation forces started firing towards us 
intermittently. We had to kneel down and run or sometimes to creep on 
our stomachs. We continued moving this way until we arrived in the aid 
center.”

He added: “When we arrived, it was 1.50am but we were shocked when we 
found a plot of land with around 1,000 square kilometers surrounded with 
high sand barricades; it had only one long and narrow entrance with 
barbed wires on both sides. The Israeli occupation forces continued 
shooting around us. Every couple of minutes, someone fell down either 
dead or wounded. It depends on where he was shot.

“At 2am, we heard a voice via loudspeakers. We did not know its source, 
but it was accompanied with a greenlight and told us to move forward and 
collect the aid. At this time, all the shooting stopped, then total 
chaos erupted. It was completely dark, starving people stampeded and the 
worst thing was that there were not more than 500 food packages while 
there were more than 50,000 aid seekers. Therefore, each package was 
sought by at least ten people. They quarreled, they pulled the package, 
ripped it and the aid – flour – rapped with paper was poured on the 
ground or damaged. Each one took one or two cans.

“Ten minutes later, a yellow light flashed and someone via loudspeakers 
warned us to leave the area very quickly within five minutes. People 
started to run away and after five minutes a red light also flashed and 
shooting from all directions began. People ran as fast as they could; a 
lot of them threw the aid they had in order to be able to climb over the 
sand barricades and flee.”

For Yassin, he had some bruises in both legs as he was trapped inside 
the barbed passage; it was a futile journey. He could not get anything 
for his children, and went back home empty handed.

Alaa al Sawwaf, 24, from Gaza City, told me he went to get aid from the 
GHF’s aid center near Gaza Valley, which is about 10km far from his 
home. “I went there along with one of our neighbors. We arrived near the 
aid distribution center and my neighbor was shot and wounded. Thanks to 
Allah, he suffered a minor injury in his thigh. I carried him on my 
shoulder and went back home.”

Imad Sarsour and his brother Bilal, both are teens, told me a similar 
account like Yassin’s. The only difference was the short distance from 
their home to the GHF’s center in Gaza Valley. They went back home with 
13 kilograms of flour and two small biscuit bags. Imad suffered from a 
light injury between his shoulders from a shrapnel of a bullet that hit 
a concrete block he hid behind it when the Israeli occupation forces 
opened fire at them. He was OK.

Yassan, Al Sawwaf and brothers Sarsour told me that they would never go 
back to get aid from the GHF’s aid centers. Iyad’s 4-year-old daughter 
told me: “I am happy that my dad is back wounded, not dead. I prefer to 
remain starving rather than asking my dad to go get some aid from the 
Americans.”

UNRWA’s Commissioner General Philppo Lazzarini along with many other 
officials from international organizations and rights groups have 
condemned the GHF’s aid distribution mechanism as a “death trap.”

“Aid distribution has become a death trap,” Lazzarini has said, pointing 
out to “mass casualties including scores of injured and killed among 
starving civilians” due to Israelis targeting them, stressing that this 
mechanism is “humiliating, dangerous, and exacerbates starvation.”

He also called it as dystopian “hunger games,” insisting that aid must 
be safe and dignified. “This ‘model’ will not address the deepening 
hunger. The so‑called new way of handling assistance in Gaza is most 
degrading, humiliating and puts lives in danger.”

According to Gaza Media Office, medical sources and human rights groups, 
as of 23 June 2025, the Israeli occupation forces have killed 450 
starving civilians and wounded over 3,465 others near Gaza GHF’s aid 
distribution points. It also stated that there are confirmed reports 
about 39 missing.

Most of the casualties occurred due to live fire, drone attacks and 
crowd crushes during chaotic aid distributions. The majority of victims 
were starving civilians, including children and elderly, attempting to 
get food aid.

/-Motasem A Dalloul is MEMO’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip./

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