Amid initial reports of Israeli forces firing on civilians near a new privatized aid distribution point in southern Gaza, the head of the Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Sunday that lifting the months-long aid blockade of the enclave is the only way to avoid “mass starvation”.
Lazzarini posted on social media saying that aid distribution “has become a death trap,” citing reports from international medical staff on the ground and local health authorities who reported at least 31 deaths and more than 150 injured as civilians were lining up to receive aid from the Israel and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – which bypasses existing aid agencies.
“A distribution point by the Israeli-American plan was put far south in Rafah,” Mr. Lazzarini said on X.
“This humiliating system has forced thousands of hungry and desperate people to walk for tens of miles to an area that’s all but pulverized due to heavy bombardment by the Israeli army.”
He said aid delivery and distribution “must be at scale and safe. In Gaza, this can be done only through the United Nations including UNRWA.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – which uses private contractors and involves Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to secure its sites – has denied that civilians were fired on, accusing Hamas of misinformation.
The IDF said on social media that reports of them firing towards residents receiving aid from the foundation were false: “Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site.”
Medical staff at Nasser hospital in nearby Khan Younis told media outlets that around 79 people were admitted on Sunday, mostly with gunshot wounds, along with the bodies of some of those killed. Journalists on the scene posted video footage of bodies being carried on carts along with wounded arrivals.
UNRWA chief Lazzarini called on Israel to lift the three-month old aid blockade and allow safe and unhindered access. “This is the only way to avert mass starvation including among one million children.”
Highlighting the difficulties of clearly establishing facts on the ground due to Israel’s ban on international media from entering the Gaza Strip, the UNRWA chief said that amid competing narratives and “disinformation campaigns in full gear,” the ban on eyewitness reporting must be lifted immediately.
New US aid group
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Sunday that people it treated at a Gaza aid site run by a new US-backed organisation reported being "shot from all sides" by Israeli forces.
The NGO, known by its French name MSF, blamed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's aid distribution system for chaos at the scene in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 31 Palestinians at the site. Witnesses told AFP the Israeli military had opened fire.
The GHF and Israeli authorities denied any such incident took place but MSF and other medics reported treating crowds of locals with gunshot wounds at the Nasser hospital in the nearby town of Khan Younis.
"Patients told MSF they were shot from all sides by drones, helicopters, boats, tanks and Israeli soldiers on the ground," MSF said in a statement.
MSF emergency coordinator Claire Manera in the statement called the GHF's system of aid delivery "dehumanising, dangerous and severely ineffective".
"It has resulted in deaths and injuries of civilians that could have been prevented. Humanitarian aid must be provided only by humanitarian organisations who have the competence and determination to do it safely and effectively."
MSF communications officer Nour Alsaqa in the statement reported hospital corridors filled with patients, mostly men, with "visible gunshot wounds in their limbs".
MSF quoted one injured man, Mansour Sami Abdi, as describing people fighting over just five pallets of aid.
"They told us to take food -- then they fired from every direction," he said. "This isn't aid. It's a lie."
The Israeli military said an initial inquiry found its troops "did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site".
A GHF spokesperson said: "These fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas," the Islamic militant group that Israel has vowed to destroy in Gaza.–Agencies