A new investigation by The Daily Wire is casting doubt on a now-viral story shared by a former Gaza Humanitarian Foundation contractor who claimed he witnessed Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill a child while receiving aid at a GHF site.
Tony Aguilar, who first recounted his experience on the podcast Unxeptable on July 28, claimed that he met a child named “Amir” while working at a GHF aid location on May 28. He said, after sharing words and an embrace with Amir, that the boy got lost in the crowd, and was subsequently shot and killed an hour later by the IDF.
However, in a video obtained by The Daily Wire, Siham Al-Jarabe’a—a woman claiming to be the child’s stepmother—told an Arabic interviewer on Aug. 5 that the boy, whom she identified as Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hamdan Al-Jarabe’a, was alive and with her until he went missing on July 28. She disputed many of the details of Aguilar’s story.
Additionally, a review of body cam footage from an American security contractor standing next to Aguilar on the day of the alleged incident showed a different version of the encounter.
“Tony completely fabricated his story,” the security contractor told the Wire.
Aguilar, who claimed to have resigned from his GHF post, was reportedly fired by the organization on June 13 “due to poor performance, volatile conflicts with staff and erratic behavior,” the media outlet reported.
GHF and the IDF stated there were no reports of an incident involving Israeli military fire on civilians at any GHF distribution site on May 28.
