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gaza humanitarian foundation
Israeli Attacks Kill Dozens at Aid Sites as Gaza Death Toll Surpasses 55,000
One Palestinian man said he and his brother, who was killed, had no choice but to try to access aid at privatized distribution points, even though they knew it was dangerous to approach them.
Jun 11, 2025
With chaos and violence persisting "by design" at aid sites set up by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed organization in Gaza, the death toll at the distribution points rose Wednesday, as did the overall number of deaths in the enclave since Israel began bombarding the civilian population 20 months ago.
At least 120 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours across the enclave, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 55,104. Gaza's Health Ministry added that at least 474 people have been injured over the past day.
The latest deaths include at least 57 people who were seeking humanitarian aid, which Israel is allowing to be accessed only at distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—staffed by U.S. security contractors and guarded by Israeli forces. More than 363 people were also injured at aid sites by Israeli forces since Wednesday morning.
In total, 224 people have been killed at GHF's distribution centers since they began operating over the objections of the United Nations, aid groups that have long worked in Gaza, and an executive who had been leading the initiative but resigned late last month, saying GHF's aid plan violated the "humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence."
Issam Wahdan, a Palestinian man whose brother was killed when he tried to retrieve aid near the Netzarim Corridor this week, toldAl Jazeera that he and his brother had attempted to obtain one of GHF's food boxes several times, "but we never got lucky."
"So, my brother and I decided to go early to the distribution center," Wahdan told Al Jazeera. "When we arrived, we were surprised to see quadcopters shooting at us. We didn't know what to do, we had never experienced this before. The quadcopter threw a bomb at us. There were many wounded and martyred people, including my brother, who was wounded yesterday and died today. One of our best friends was martyred on the spot."
Wahdan suggested he and his brother saw the GHF distribution hubs as dangerous, but had to try to retrieve aid to feed their families.
"We need humanitarian aid so we have to go to the center. My brother was married and had two boys and one daughter. His youngest is 18 months old," he said. "His children are hungry and that forced him to go there to get some aid. When your children are hungry, you need to do anything to provide them with food."
Israel has acknowledged firing "warning shots" to control large crowds of starving Palestinians at GHF sites, and have claimed that the Israel Defense Forces have shot only at "suspects" who approached the troops. Israel and its allies have also repeatedly claimed the IDF has been targeting Hamas in Gaza, even amid mounting evidence that they have deliberately killed civilians.
Palestinians have been forced to walk an average of 9.3 miles to retrieve boxes that Chris Newton, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said contain an amount of sustenance that is "closer to the ration given in a starvation experiment run in the 1940s in the U.S. than it is to Israel's own previous 2008 red line for the minimum calories needed to avoid malnutrition in Gaza."
"The violence, the chaos, and the complete inadequacy of the types and volume of aid being given out are not so much mistakes of the system, but really by design," Newton told Al Jazeera. "This is not the system you would design if your goal was to end mass starvation in the Gaza Strip."
The GHF sites were established more than 80 days after Israel imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid in March, just before it broke a temporary cease-fire. In May, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification released a report warning that the siege had placed the entirety of the Gaza Strip in "Phase 4," with the population suffering from "very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality."
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday posted on social media the story of a 5-year-old boy named Osama, who was "once a healthy child in Gaza."
"He now weighs only 5 kilograms, dangerously below the healthy weight for his age. Osama is being treated at Nasser Hospital but his full recovery depends on sufficient nutrition and follow-up care—both of which are at risk," said UNICEF. "The recovery of children like Osama is possible only with a long-lasting cease-fire and aid at scale being allowed into Gaza."
Gaza's Government Media Office said Wednesday that Israel is "deliberately creating chaos in the Gaza Strip by perpetuating a policy of starvation and deliberately targeting and killing starving people seeking food."
"This has been achieved," said the office, "through direct, often intentional, and sometimes random, killings by quadcopters, helicopters, or tanks, targeting young men, elderly people, and children who rushed to obtain whatever food aid was available to feed their children and families."
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At Least 14 More Palestinians Killed at Aid Points as Israel Detains Humanitarian Volunteers
"The almost daily massacres of starving Palestinian families desperately seeking food denied to them by the Israeli-imposed campaign of intentional starvation are crimes against humanity," said one advocate.
Jun 09, 2025
As activists who had been headed for Gaza with humanitarian aid remained in Israeli custody Monday, Palestinian rights advocates condemned reports that the death toll at aid distribution points set up by a private Israel-backed company continued to grow.
The Associated Pressreported that "Israeli forces and allied local gunmen" were behind gunfire that killed at least 14 Palestinians who were taken to local hospitals on Monday, and roughly 100 people were injured.
The people killed were the latest among a total of at least 127 Palestinians who have been killed as they've approached distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private group staffed by U.S. defense contractors and supported by the Israeli and U.S. governments—but rejected by the United Nations and groups that have long provided aid in Gaza, who say the GHF is not a neutral party and is endangering Palestinians by forcing them to walk several miles through their war-torn enclave to retrieve food boxes weighing 44 pounds each.
At Al Jazeera, Hind Khoudary reported that as Palestinians have approached the aid points in recent days, "the Israeli army starts opening fire, Israeli quadcopters hover above their heads, and Israeli tanks proceed to bear down on the aid seekers."
Among the people killed at a distribution point in Rafah near al-Mawasi was "a woman named Hanan who was solely responsible for feeding her kids and family," reported Khoudary.
"These distribution sites are in the middle of nowhere, where Israeli bulldozers destroyed residential homes," Khoudary added. "It's totally chaotic. Israeli forces have been firing live ammunition as well as tear gas canisters to disperse starving Palestinians."
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have previously admitted to opening fire on Palestinians at GHF sites, but have claimed "shots were directed near individual suspects who advanced toward the troops."
The APreported that men from a local militia called the Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, opened fire at a distribution site in Khan Younis after the men tried to organize the crowd and people "pushed forward."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that his government has armed Abu Shabab's militia as part of an effort to undermine Hamas. Abu Shabab denied the claim. Aid workers have said the Popular Forces have long looted trucks carrying humanitarian relief—something Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of doing as it has entirely cut off aid to Gaza since March.
An eyewitness named Hussein Shamimi told the AP that his 14-year-old cousin was killed in the attack on Monday.
"There was an ambush," said Shamimi, "the Israelis from one side and Abu Shabab from another."
At least four people were shot in the neck, another witness told the outlet.
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations in the U.S., called for an "immediate end" to the U.S. government's "complicity" in Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians since October 2023, and in the attacks on people at GHF aid points.
"The almost daily massacres of starving Palestinian families desperately seeking food denied to them by the Israeli-imposed campaign of intentional starvation are crimes against humanity carried out with the complicity of our own government," said Awad. "Food and other humanitarian supplies must enter Gaza unimpeded, without Israel being allowed to use starvation as a weapon of war and a tool for ethnic cleansing."
Also in Khan Younis on Monday, a Palestinian child became the latest to die of malnutrition at the Children's and Maternity Hospital.
At least 58 children in Gaza have died of malnutrition since Israel began its total blockade of aid in early March.
Meanwhile, organizers with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition reported Monday they had been unable to contact 12 international activists and volunteers who were aboard the Madleen, bound for Gaza, for 19 hours.
The activists, including Swedish climate leader Greta Thunberg, had been sailing to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid.
"These citizens were sailing peacefully under international law, in international waters, and Israel went and forcibly abducted them," Huwaida Arraf toldAl Jazeera. "This was done, as Israel puts it, to 'maintain a maritime closure of Gaza'—which it has no authority to do."
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International Red Cross Chief Says Gaza Conditions 'Worse' Than 'Hell on Earth'
"We cannot continue to watch what is happening," said Mirjana Spoljaric. "It's surpassing any acceptable legal, moral, and humane standard."
Jun 04, 2025
The president of one of the world's top humanitarian groups said in an interview Wednesday that nearly 20 months after Israel began its relentless assault on Gaza, the international community is watching "a type of warfare... that deprives civilians of their dignity entirely."
Jeremy Bowen, international editor for BBC News, asked International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) president Mirjana Spoljaric about comments she made last month when she visited Gaza, several weeks into Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid, and declared that the enclave had been transformed into "hell on Earth."
"Has anything changed?" asked Bowen.
"It has become worse," replied Spoljaric. "Humanity is failing in Gaza... We cannot continue to watch what is happening. It's surpassing any acceptable legal, moral, and humane standard."
Spoljaric's latest remarks came a week after the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began its aid operations, with proponents claiming the private company staffed by U.S. security contractors would save the lives of Gaza residents who have faced increasing starvation and malnutrition since the current blockade began in March—while ensuring Hamas did not steal or divert the aid. The United Nations has said there is no evidence Hamas has systematically diverted relief from civilians.
Fears about the GHF's plan—expressed by aid organizations, the U.N., and the former executive director who resigned the day before operations began—have been proven correct since the group opened its distribution sites in southern Gaza last week. At least 27 Palestinians were killed Tuesday at one of the aid sites when the Israel Defense Forces opened fire—yet another incident of the IDF killing of people trying to obtain aid.
The ICRC said its field hospital in Rafah received "a mass casualty influx of 184 patients" early on Tuesday morning.
"This includes nineteen cases who were declared dead upon arrival and eight more who died due to their wounds shortly after," said the group. "The majority of cases suffered gunshot wounds. Again, all responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site."
Mohamed Zidan, the husband of a woman named Reem al-Akhras who was killed in Tuesday's mass shooting, said the GHF operation was "not humanitarian aid—it's a trap."
"She went to bring us some food, and this is what happened to her," her son Zain Zidan toldAl Jazeera.
Journalist Rania Khalek condemned corporate news outlets for their reports of "conflicting accounts" as Israel said that the IDF fired only at "several suspects moving toward them."
"Outrageous," said Khalek. "The Israelis are proven liars, their narrative should not be given any legitimacy. CNN continues to cover for genocide, shameful."
Israeli forces also opened fire at one of the sites on Sunday, killing 20 people and wounding hundreds who had walked an average of 9.3 miles to the distribution hub, hoping to carry home food boxes weighing about 44 pounds, with enough food to last about three days before they would need to make the trek—and avoid IDF soldiers stationed at the sites—again.
On Wednesday, the GHF said its four distribution sites would be closed for the day to improve "organization and efficiency," while the IDF warned Palestinians to stay away from the sites and the roads leading to them, saying they had been designated "combat zones."
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres demanded an independent inquiry into the killing of Palestinians at food distribution sites.
"It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food," Guterres said.
Gaza's Health Ministry reported Wednesday that at least 94 Palestinians had been killed and 440 had been wounded in Israel's attacks across the enclave in the past 24 hours.
In her interview with the BBC, Spoljaric said that the destruction of more than 90% of Gaza's housing units, the risk of famine for the entire population, and the forced displacement of 90% of Palestinians in the enclave represent "a people being entirely stripped of its human dignity."
"There is no excuse for depriving children of their access to food, health, and security," said Spoljaric. "There are rules in the conduct of hostilities that every party to every conflict has to respect."
Spoljaric called on international leaders to take all available actions to stop "a type of warfare that shows utmost disrespect for civilians."
"Today we are in it," she said. "Today we can reverse it. We can save lives today."
Few U.S. officials have called for an end to the government's support for the IDF, and the U.S. continues to repeat Israel's claim that it is acting in self-defense and targeting Hamas rather than civilians.
Several European leaders in recent weeks have harshly criticized Israel's intensified military campaign in Gaza and its humanitarian aid blockade, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul suggesting the country could soon impose arms export sanctions.
"It's important to act now," said Spoljaric. "State leaders are under an obligation to act."
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