JERUSALEM: Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Israeli forces operating outside US-backed aid centers in war-torn Gaza of routinely killing Palestinian civilians seeking food, as well as using starvation as a weapon of war.
“US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
After nearly 22 months of war in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas, the Palestinian territory is slipping into famine, and civilians are starving to death, according to a UN-mandated expert report.
HIGHLIGHT
After nearly 22 months of war in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas, the Palestinian territory is slipping into famine, and civilians are starving to death, according to a UN-mandated expert report.
Israel and the US have backed a private aid operation run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at four sites inside Gaza, protected by US military contractors and the Israeli army.
GHF launched its operations in late May, sidelining the longstanding UN-led humanitarian system just as Israel was beginning to ease a more than two-month aid blockade that led to dire shortages of food and other essentials.
Since then, witnesses, the civil defense agency, and AFP correspondents inside Gaza have reported frequent incidents in which Israeli troops have opened fire on crowds of desperate Palestinian civilians approaching GHF centers seeking food.
At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at GHF sites between May 27 and July 31 — most by the Israeli military — according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,” HRW’s Wille said in a statement.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff promised a plan to deliver more food to Gaza after inspecting the US-backed distribution center on Friday.
Witkoff said he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza, in a post accompanied by a photograph of himself wearing a protective vest and meeting staff at a GHF distribution center.
The foundation said it had delivered its 100 millionth meal in Gaza during the visit by Witkoff and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee to Gaza.
President Donald Trump “understands the stakes in Gaza and that feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority. Today he sent his envoy to serve as his eyes and ears on the ground, reflecting his deep concern and commitment to doing what’s right,” GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay said.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said 22 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Friday, including eight who were waiting to collect food aid.
