In the early hours of June 11, before sunrise, 19-year-old Hatem Shaldan and his brother Hamza, 23, went to wait for aid trucks near the Netzarim Corridor in the central Gaza Strip. They hoped to return with a bag of white flour for their family of five. Instead, Hamza returned with his younger brother’s body wrapped in a white burial shroud.

The Shaldan family had lived virtually without food for nearly two months due to Israel’s blockade, crammed into a classroom-turned-shelter in eastern Gaza City. Their home, once nearby, was destroyed completely by an Israeli airstrike in January 2024.

At around 1:30 a.m., the two brothers joined dozens of starving Palestinians on Al-Rashid Street along the shore upon hearing that trucks carrying flour would enter the Strip. Two hours later, they heard shouts of “The trucks are coming!” followed immediately by the sound of Israeli artillery shelling…

In total, 25 Palestinians were killed that morning waiting for aid trucks on Al-Rashid Street.

‘The Hunger Games’: Inside Israel’s aid death traps for starving Gazans, 972mag.com, June 20

This is a brief glimpse into the latest genocidal horror being inflicted by the U.S. and Israel on the Palestinian people of Gaza—so-called “aid massacres.” 

After blocking all food from coming into Gaza for 78 days (March 2-May 19) and causing mass starvation, the U.S. and Israel were forced to appear to be allowing food in.¹ So they created the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) and set up four aid distribution points.²

Tens of thousands of Palestinians—starving and desperate—have walked miles through Israeli military-controlled areas to reach these American-run sites in order to get a few morsels of food for their families. 

Now Israel and the U.S. have turned them into death traps, with massacres taking place every day. As if that’s not horrific enough, it’s now been revealed that those massacres are deliberate! 

“IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid”

The scenes at these GHF sites are cruel and chaotic. Thousands and thousands of Palestinians walk through the night, then gather nearby early in the morning for the chance to get food. Sometimes the sites don’t even open that day, or only stay open for an hour. GHF has NO experience in food distribution, so often it turns into a mass rush to grab a box before others do and the meager supplies run out.³ 

How does the Israeli military—which surrounds these sites—handle this chaos? With gunfire, mortars and tank rounds.

According to “'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid,” a damning new exposure by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli soldiers were ordered to “fire at unarmed crowds near food distribution sites in Gaza… to drive them away or disperse them, even though it was clear they posed no threat.” 

"It's a killing field," one soldier said. "Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They're treated like a hostile force—no crowd-control measures, no tear gas—just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.”

Soldiers told Haaretz of firing on crowds to prevent them from approaching the sites before they open and when they close to disperse them. They make clear these crowds of the hungry “pose no danger to the forces." One said, "I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons." He added that they call violent actions “Operation Salted Fish—the name of the Israeli version of the children's game ‘Red light, green light.’"

The genocidal nature of Israel’s actions in Gaza is reflected in the soldiers’ attitudes: “This thing called killing innocent people—it's been normalized. We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops.” No disciplinary action has been taken “against officers whose soldiers harmed civilians, despite clear violations of IDF orders and the laws of war,” Haaretz reports. 

Over 500 Killed, 4,000 Wounded—Added to Staggering Death Toll

According to Gaza’s health Ministry, since May 27, some 549 people have been killed near aid centers, and in some cases waiting for UN food trucks, and over 4,000 have been wounded. On June 17 alone, 70 were killed and hundreds wounded when Israeli forces fired tank shells, machine guns, and drones into a crowd. 

Since the opening of the GHF sites in mid-May, the Red Cross hospital in Rafah has activated “mass casualty procedures” 20 times.⁴ Doctors Without Borders calls the new U.S.-Israeli food distribution system “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.”

Meanwhile, it’s very likely that overall nearly 100,000 Gazans have died from Israeli fire as well as hunger and disease since Israel launched its genocide in October 2023 according to a new survey. Over half have been either children up to the age of 18, or women.⁵ 

Lies, Lies, Lies and the Genocidal Purpose of GHF

Israel and the U.S. have denied any responsibility for these aid massacres. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (aka Netan-Nazi) denounced Haaretz’s report that IDF soldiers had deliberately fired on unarmed crowds “malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world.” The Israeli military claimed no forces were ordered “to deliberately shoot at civilians,” and that “IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians.” 

The GHF—an organization created by Israel and the U.S. and led by the Trump fascist regime—claimed the media was falsely attributing violence near UN convoys to GHF sites, and accused Hamas of spreading misinformation. The U.S. State Department recently allocated $30 million to fund the GHF, and a spokesperson declared the Foundation, was “absolutely incredible and should be commended and supported… We’re seeing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in line with President Trump’s call to deliver aid in a way where it can’t be looted by Hamas… We’re seeing those creative solutions.”⁶ 

These are lies. For one, the United Nations denies that Hamas systematically steals humanitarian goods. But the bigger lie is that the U.S. and the Gaza Humanitarian Fund aim to help the Palestinian people. In reality, they are instruments of Israel’s Gaza genocide.

The GHF was set up by the U.S. and Israel in order to allow Israel to continue its genocidal war on Gaza in the face of mounting international outrage about mass starvation in Gaza. Its purpose was never to end that starvation—which is a core element of Israel’s genocide. That’s why Israel continues to block the UN from distributing food and why there are only four GHF sites while the UN ran 400!

Three of the four GHF sites are in southern Gaza, and their aim is to force Gazans to relocate to the south so Israel can confine them in a small strip of land near the Egyptian border. Its creation is also an effort to discredit the UN and move toward full Israeli control of all of Gaza. 

These food massacres are taking place in the context of 20 months of U.S.-backed Israeli slaughter and devastation in Gaza. And they are a further effort to terrorize, murder, dehumanize, and break the spirit of the Palestinian people. 

Everyone with a conscience must speak out and actively protest against this towering U.S.-Israeli crime against humanity!

Stop the U.S.-Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinian People! 

End the Siege on Gaza Now!