Gaza’s ‘death race’: hundreds killed in desperate dash for food aid

Like Squid Game. That is how residents describe it, invoking the dystopian TV show when recounting the lethal gauntlet that getting aid in famine-haunted Gaza has become. “It’s a death race. The faster, the stronger, the luckier - they’re the ones who might survive, might reach the food,” said 30-year-old Mohammed al-Shaqra. “It feels like we’re animals, racing for a box of supplies as if our lives depend on it. And they do.” Ever since Israel sidelined the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations late last month and tasked assistance operations to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an opaque US and Israeli-backed private contractor registered in Delaware, killing has been the near-daily companion of aid deliveries. On Thursday, health authorities in Gaza said 12 people were killed near a GHF distribution centre, a relatively low toll in a week that saw 59 killed in similar circumstances on Tuesday. Since the foundation began its work on May 26, more than 400 people have been killed and more than 3,000 wounded. Al-Shaqra became one of the casualties this month. On June 8, he gathered with thousands of others early in the morning near the GHF centre in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. It was his third attempt to get food. “I was desperate to bring something back - flour, rice, pasta, anything - for my parents, my siblings and their kids,” he said. When the passageway to the distribution centre opened, al-Shaqra sprinted as fast as he could, hoping to beat others in the crowd and grab a box. But then an Israeli quadcopter drone - it had been buzzing above beforehand - started dropping explosives; the third bomb landed close to him, he said. “My left arm shattered. I looked down and saw the bone hanging, and there was a sharp pain in my guts,” he said. Cradling his arm and trying to stop the bleeding from his stomach, he stumbled for almost a kilometre before collapsing onto a donkey cart. A kind driver took him to a field hospital for the International Community of the Red Cross. The doctors saved his arm. The GHF came online two months after Israel cut off all aid entering Gaza in March, justifying the blockade - despite widespread opprobrium - as a way to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages even as Palestinian authorities and aid groups reported a starvation crisis. Although the UN and humanitarian organisations pleaded for access to feed the roughly 2 million people in the Gaza Strip, Israel insisted Hamas was stealing aid, a claim the UN and other groups deny and for which Israel has never provided evidence. The alternative, the Israeli government said, would be the GHF. Instead of using humanitarian workers, the GHF has deployed armed private contractors with the Israeli military stationed only a hundred metres or so away. It also concentrated aid deliveries to what the GHF calls four “fortified” hubs in southern Gaza rather than the roughly 400 smaller centres used by the UN and other aid groups across the enclave - forcing already hungry people to walk for kilometres through active combat zones to access the deliveries. Gaza residents also complain that only one or two hubs are usually operating on any given day, and they rarely open at the announced time. It is also never stated what is in the food boxes. Rather than directly handing the boxes to people, GHF workers instead dump them on pallets and watch crowds swarm over them. People gather hours in advance on safe routes designated by the Israeli military, but often find themselves under Israeli fire when allowed to approach the hubs. “It’s a real-life version of Squid Game. We run, then the shooting starts, we hit the ground and stay still so we’re not killed, then run again,” said Hussein Nizar, a resident who repeatedly tried to get aid, even after his neighbour Ameen Sameer was shot in the head. “I watched him die beside me,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything to help out because of all the shooting.” The Israeli military has repeatedly responded to questions about killings near GHF sites by saying it would look into reports of civilian casualties. In a previous incident, it said troops fired on people approaching them in a threatening manner. Several Palestinians and a GHF spokesman - who gave his name as Majed - said many of the shootings occur when people run beyond the limits of the safe route in an attempt to get to the distribution site faster. Even if they are not wounded or killed, many go home empty-handed, said Jassim, a 28-year-old logistics worker hired by a local contractor working with the GHF. “Decent people, especially the elderly and women with children, can’t fight through the crowds,” he said. He added that gangs also stalk people leaving the delivery area so as to rob them and sell the precious supplies on the black market. “Many of them carry knives. It’s like a trap and I see many people killed.”

Gaza’s ‘death race’: hundreds killed in desperate dash for food aid

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Survivors recount dodging drone attacks and gunfire in their desperate attempts to secure food

Survivors recount dodging drone attacks and gunfire in their desperate attempts to secure food