Israeli troops open fire as aid group loses control of distribution centre

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Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, chosen by Israel, unprepared for thousands of hungry Palestinians, leading staff to abandon posts
Israeli troops have opened fire near thousands of hungry Palestinians as a logistics group chosen by Israel to ship food into Gaza lost control of its distribution centre on its second day of operations.

An 11-week total siege and a continuing tight Israel blockade mean most people in Gaza are desperately hungry. Hundreds of thousands walked through Israeli military lines to reach the new distribution centre in Rafah on Tuesday.

But the newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was not prepared for them and staff at one point were forced to abandon their posts.

Israel is trying to replace the humanitarian organisations that bring aid into Gaza. It has long claimed, without providing evidence, that Hamas disrupts supply networks to profit from aid.

The GHF uses armed security contractors to deliver food in compounds guarded by Israel’s military. It previously acknowledged that this method excludes some of the most vulnerable people in Gaza because only those able to walk long distances and carry heavy boxes of food will be able to feed their families this way.

And despite pushing for control of food and other supplies coming into Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces had not properly prepared to distribute aid and “planned to direct the population using gunfire,” a security source told Haaretz.

“They treated it like a routine situation involving suspects entering a combat zone, but you can’t direct a population of that scale with gunfire if you want them to feel safe reaching the areas you’ve opened,” he told the newspaper.

The source said the military’s original idea to direct crowds using gunfire suggests “they didn’t think and didn’t plan” to use other means, such as fencing off the area.

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