Thousands of Palestinians have overrun an aid distribution site in Gaza set up by a controversial US and Israeli-backed group, a day after it began working there.
Videos showed crowds walking over torn-down fences and earth berms at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) compound in the southern city of Rafah.
The group said that at one point its team fell back because the numbers seeking aid were so great. The Israeli military said troops nearby fired warning shots.
The GHF, which uses armed American security contractors, aims to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid in Gaza, where experts have warned of a looming famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade that was recently eased.
The UN said the videos from Rafah were “heartbreaking” and that it had a detailed plan ready to get enough aid to the “desperate population” of 2.1 million.
The UN and many aid groups have refused to co-operate with GHF’s plans, which they say contradict humanitarian principles and appear to “weaponise aid”.
They have warned that the system will practically exclude those with mobility issues, force further displacement, expose thousands of people to harm, make aid conditional on political and military aims, and set an unacceptable precedent for aid delivery around the world.
Israel has said an alternative to the current aid system is needed to stop Hamas stealing aid, which the group denies doing.
The GHF announced on Monday that it had “commenced operations in Gaza” and begun giving out supplies to Palestinians at its distribution sites.
US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio support “bold” and “out-of-the-box efforts” to make life better for the people of Gaza, said a senior Trump administration official.
The GHF announced on Monday that it had “commenced operations in Gaza” and begun giving out supplies to Palestinians at its distribution sites.
They added “unsurprisingly, Hamas attempted to place blockades on the food trucks” but GHF had distributed around 462,000 meals so far.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli military confirmed two sites located in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah and the Morag Corridor – an east-west military zone that separates the city from the rest of Gaza – had begun distributing food to families.
At around the same time, Israeli and Palestinian media shared pictures showing long queues of Palestinians at the Tal al-Sultan site.
But just over an hour later, they began posting videos showing thousands of men, women and children streaming into the compound. In one clip, some people are seen running and ducking as what appear to be gunshots ring out.
Witnesses described a scene of chaos as people seized food parcels and other aid from the site. They also said Israeli troops stationed nearby had opened fire.
“The situation was extremely difficult. They only allowed 50 people to cross at a time,” one man told BBC Arabic’s Middle East daily radio programme. “In the end, chaos broke out – people climbed over the gates, attacked others, and took all the [aid].”
“It was a humiliating experience,” he added. “We’ve suffered greatly from hunger. We’re just looking for a bit of sugar to make a cup of tea, and a piece of bread to eat.”
A woman said hunger and poverty had “overwhelmed everyone”.
“People are exhausted – willing to do anything, even risk their lives – just to find food and feed their children.”
A statement from the GHF acknowledged that “the needs on the ground are great” and said it had so far handed out about 8,000 food boxes – equivalent to 462,000 meals – through a partnership with local non-governmental organisations.
However, it said Palestinians had experienced several hours of delays in accessing one site “due to blockades imposed by Hamas”, without providing evidence.
“At one moment in the late afternoon, the volume of people at the SBS [Secure Distribution Site] was such that the GHF team fell back to allow a small number of Gazans to take aid safely and dissipate. This was done in accordance with GHF protocol to avoid casualties. Normal operations have resumed,” it added.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops had fired “warning shots in the area outside the compound”.
“Control over the situation was established, food distribution operations are expected to continue as planned, and the safety of IDF troops was not compromised,” it stated.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office said Israel’s efforts to distribute aid had “failed miserably”. It also denied that Hamas had tried to stop civilians reaching the GHF’s sites.
At a news conference in New York, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said: “We have been watching the video coming out of Gaza around one of the distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And frankly, these videos, these images, are heartbreaking.”
“We and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound plan supported by member states to get aid to a desperate population. We continue to stress that a meaningful scale-up of humanitarian operations is essential to stave off famine and meet the needs of all civilians wherever they are,” he added.
The US state department’s spokeswoman called the UN’s criticism “the height of hypocrisy”.
“It is unfortunate, because the issue here is giving aid to Gaza, and then suddenly it moves into complaints about style or the nature of who’s doing it,” Tammy Bruce told reporters.
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