The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation resumed aid distribution at two sites in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood on Thursday, after temporarily shutting down its operations the previous day for “update, organization and efficiency improvement work.”
The temporary freeze came after three days of unrest around the distribution sites, where IDF soldiers fired their weapons to control the crowds, and Hamas gunmen fired their weapons to discourage Gazans from receiving aid not under their control.
While Hamas has publicly claimed that 61 people were killed and an additional 295 were wounded, the IDF has stated that these numbers are inflated.
GHF head Johnnie Moore said that “false reporting of violence at our sites has a chilling effect on the local population, and we can think of no greater disservice to a community in dire need.”
GHF began distributing food packages on May 26, stating that it “commenced operations, delivering truckloads of food to its Secure Distribution Sites, where distribution to the Gazan people began. … the flow of aid increasing each day.”
Israel welcomed the arrival of GHF, a U.S.-based organization, as a means of delivering humanitarian aid directly to Gazan families, thus stopping Hamas from stealing the majority of the supplies.
The U.N.’s Bureau of the General Assembly’s Committee, however, stated on May 30 that “this initiative is an attempt to circumvent the U.N. and its agencies on the ground, foremost UNRWA, that have long delivered humanitarian aid and basic services.”
It further claimed that “GHF fails the test of the humanitarian principles,” and that it was practicing “a policy of deprivation by design.” The U.N. urged Israel to allow UNRWA and other aid groups to reenter Gaza, and has refused to cooperate with GHF in its effort to supply Gazan families with food.
Moore said, “GHF believes that serving the people of Gaza with dignity and compassion must be the top priority. We welcome others to join us and urge extreme caution against sharing unverified information from sources that have repeatedly issued demonstrably false reports.”
The international community is not the only one to raise eyebrows at the return of aid to Gaza.
In the lead up to the initiative, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declared, “I see the stupid debate in the Cabinet—who should bring in ‘humanitarian’ aid, IDF soldiers or an external party—this is a stupid debate! Humanitarian aid should not be brought into Gaza, period.
“As long as we have hostages who are not receiving food, humanitarian aid will not be brought into Gaza,” he said.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said that “IDF soldiers will not distribute humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. …
“Soldiers will secure the humanitarian zone and allow international organizations to distribute without it reaching Hamas; that will be done. Soldiers distributing food to the Gazans; that will not be done. End of story,” the general said.
Definitely no screening
An IDF reservist serving in Rafah told JNS in an interview that GHF faces serious logistical challenges, due to the realities of attempting to deliver aid to a population in extremis.
“The original plan was that the IDF would coordinate with each family individually. It planned to send text messages to everyone who was slated to show up the next day, and those people were supposed to show up.”
Instead, the soldier explained that “whatever the process is, there’s definitely no screening when they show up. They show up as a massive crowd, they swarm, and grab as many boxes as they can.”
In response to reports of the IDF shooting at civilians, the reservist explained that “the entire night there’s a crowd of thousands of people who are trying to get as close to the site as possible before it opens. From our side, we’re trying to prevent them from swarming the place, at least before it opens, so shots are fired into the air to distance them from the aid sites.”
The soldier made it clear that the IDF has never intentionally harmed civilians in these scenarios.
In response to the narrative disseminated by Hamas, the IDF has published official drone footage of Hamas terrorists firing at Gazan civilians to prevent them from going to collect food.
“This was such a problem that the army literally set up a bus route for Gazans with an army escort. The Gazans are bused around the places where they would be stopped by Hamas, and then dropped off at the distribution center,” the soldier said.
On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee rebuked American news outlets for disseminating false reports provided by Hamas. “Drone video and first-hand accounts clearly showed that there were no injuries, no fatalities, no shooting, no chaos,” he said.
“It is Hamas that continues to terrorize and intimidate those who seek food aid. The only sources for these misleading, exaggerated and utterly fabricated stories came from Hamas sources, which are designed to fan the flames of antisemitic hate that is arguably contributing to violence against Jews in the United States,” said Huckabee.
An Israeli government official told JNS that Hamas’s response to the latest aid effort makes sense, as it weakens its hold on the Gazan population.
He explained that Israel is helping GHF for two reasons. “To disconnect Hamas from the aid, because Hamas is attempting to steal it, and we want to hand it to the civilians. At the end of the day, we want them to receive [the supplies].
“The second aim is to separate the population from Hamas.”
He explained that Hamas controls its citizenry through harsh governance and maintaining a chokehold on resources, i.e. food.
The Israeli official added that once “we achieve the objective of the population splitting from Hamas, we can create a situation that is much better both in terms of humanitarian aid and also quality of life.”
The source corroborated the account provided by the reservist serving in Rafah, stating, “Hamas is in a panic. … It is trying to dissuade the Gazans from [getting aid through] the project, calling it a displacement, a conspiracy and more.
“This is why we do it. Because Hamas fears it,” he said.