Ahmed Ahmed & Ibtisam Mahdi
Near-daily
Israeli massacres at food distribution sites have killed over 400 Palestinians
in the past month alone. Survivors describe stepping over corpses to get their
hands on a bag of flour: ‘What choice do we have?’
Thousands of Palestinians walk along Al-Rashid Street carrying bags of
flour after aid trucks entered through the Zikim area in northern Gaza
City, June 17, 2025. Several of those seeking aid were shot by Israeli
forces. (Yousef Zaanoun /Activestills)
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.
“We didn’t care about the
shelling,” Hamza recounted to +972 Magazine. “We just ran toward the trucks’
lights.”
But in the chaos of the crowd,
the brothers got separated. Hamza managed to grab a 25kg bag of flour. When he
returned to their agreed-upon meeting spot, Hatem wasn’t there.
“I kept calling his phone, over
and over, without answer,” Hamza said. “My heart ached. I began seeing dead
bodies being carried over to where I was. I refused to believe my brother might
be among them.”
Hours after Hatem went missing,
Hamza received a call from a friend: a photo of an unidentified body had
surfaced in local Whatsapp groups, taken at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir
Al-Balah, central Gaza. Hamza sent a cousin — a tuk-tuk driver — to check.
“Half an hour later, he called back, his voice shaking. He told me it was
Hatem.”
Upon hearing this, Hamza passed
out. When he came to, people were pouring water on his face. He rushed to the
hospital, where a man wounded in the same artillery strike explained what had
happened: Hatem and about 15 others had tried to hide in tall grass when
Israeli tanks opened fire.
“Hatem was hit by shrapnel in his
legs,” the man said. “He bled for hours. Dogs circled them. Eventually, when
more aid trucks arrived, people helped move the bodies onto one of them.”
In total, 25 Palestinians were
killed that morning waiting for aid trucks on Al-Rashid Street. Hamza brought
Hatem’s body back to Gaza City and buried him beside their mother, who was
killed by an Israeli sniper in August 2024. Their older brother, Khalid, 21,
had died months earlier — in a January airstrike while evacuating wounded
civilians on his horse cart.
“Hatem was the light of our
family,” Hamza said. “After we lost our mother and Khalid, he became everyone’s
favorite — including my grandmother and aunts. He visited them and helped them.
My grandmother collapsed when she saw his body. She still weeps.”
Hatem had been a skilled car
accessories technician with dreams of opening his own shop. “He was kind and
generous and loved children; he always gave them sweets,” Hamza said. “Everyone
who knew him came to his funeral. May God hold the occupation accountable for
stealing our lives, just because we are from Gaza.”
Near-daily massacres
As the world’s attention turns to
the war between Israel and Iran — and with Israel simultaneously cutting off
internet and telecommunications services, imposing effective media and
information blackouts on millions of Palestinians — Israel’s attacks on starving
Gazans awaiting aid have only intensified.
After two months without a single
drop of food, medicine, or fuel entering Gaza, a trickle of white flour and
canned goods has been allowed in since late May. Most of it has gone to sites
in Rafah and the Netzarim Corridor managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
(GHF), guarded by private American security contractors and Israeli soldiers.
On June 10, small shipments also began arriving via aid trucks operated by the
World Food Programme (WFP).
But with hunger deepening, people
no longer wait for the trucks to move safely past Israeli troops. Instead, they
rush toward them the moment they appear, desperate to grab whatever they can
before supplies vanish. Tens of thousands gather at the distribution points,
sometimes for days in advance, and many go home empty-handed.
Starving civilians gather in
massive crowds, waiting for permission to approach. In many instances, Israeli
troops have opened fire on the masses — and even during distribution itself —
killing dozens as they try to collect a few kilos of flour or canned goods to
bring home in what Palestinians have dubbed “The Hunger Games.”
Since May 27, well over 400
Palestinians have been killed and over 3,000 wounded while waiting for aid,
according to Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basel. The deadliest
single attack on aid seekers occurred on June 17, when Israeli forces fired tank
shells, machine guns, and drones into a crowd of Palestinians in Khan Younis,
killing 70 and injuring hundreds.
The limited aid trickling into
Gaza falls far short of meeting even the most basic needs. As a result, many
residents are forced to buy supplies from others who managed to get their hands
on some food at distribution sites and are now reselling it in a desperate
attempt to afford other essentials.
‘People were being killed, but
everyone kept running for flour’
The day after the massacre on
Al-Rashid Street that claimed Hatem Shaldan’s life, even larger crowds gathered
in the same spot, including 17-year-old Muhammad Abu Sharia, who arrived with
four relatives. The few aid trucks that arrived that week gave a sliver of hope
to starving families.
Abu Sharia lives with his family
of nine in their partially destroyed home in southern Gaza City, the only son
among six sisters. “My family didn’t want me to go at first,” he said. “But
we’ve been starving for two months.”
At 10 p.m., he made his way to
Al-Rashid Street, where crowds had gathered on the sand near the shore, waiting
for aid trucks. People shared warnings in hushed voices: “Stay behind the
trucks. Don’t run in front — you might get crushed.”
Abu Sharia was shocked by what he
saw. “Elderly people, women, children, all just waiting for a chance at flour.”
Then, without warning, artillery shells began falling around them.
Panic broke out. Some fled.
Others, like Abu Sharia, sprinted toward the trucks. “People were being killed
and wounded, but no one stopped. Everyone just kept running for the flour.”
He managed to grab a bag lying
beside a dead body, but only made it a few meters before a gang of four men
with knives surrounded him and threatened to kill him if he didn’t hand it
over. He let it go.
Still hoping to reach another
truck, he waited hours longer. Then he saw people shouting, “More aid has
arrived!” The trucks rolled in, barely slowing down as crowds swarmed them. “I
saw a man fall under one [truck] and get his head crushed.” With ambulances too
far away to approach for fear of Israeli airstrikes, the wounded and dead were
dragged away by donkey carts and tuk-tuks.
Abu Sharia was the only one from
his extended family able to bring back a bag of flour. His family, worried
sick, was relieved to see him. They immediately baked bread and shared it with
relatives.
“No one risks their life like
this unless they have no other choice,” he said. “We go because we’re starving.
We go because there is nothing else.”
‘One young man was blown in half.
Others had their limbs ripped off’
Yousef Abu Jalila, 38, used to
rely on humanitarian aid distributed through the WFP to feed his family of 10.
But no such package has arrived in over two months, and the price of what
little remains in the markets has skyrocketed.
Now sheltering in a tent in
Al-Yarmouk Stadium in central Gaza City, after their home in the Sheikh Zayed
neighborhood was destroyed during the Israeli army’s October 2024 incursion
into northern Gaza, he told +972: “My children cry to me that they’re hungry,
and I have nothing to feed them.”
With no white flour or remnants
of canned food, Abu Jalila has no choice but to show up at the aid distribution
points or wait for the aid trucks. “I know I might be one of those killed while
trying to get food for my family,” Abu Jalila told +972. “But I go, because my
family is starving.”
On June 14, Abu Jalila left the
tent camp with a group of neighbors after hearing rumors that aid trucks might
arrive in the Equestrian club area in the northwestern part of the Gaza Strip.
When he got there, he was surprised to find thousands of others hoping to bring
back food for their families.
As the hours passed, the crowd
drifted closer to an Israeli military position. Then, without warning, several
Israeli artillery shells exploded in the middle of the gathering.
“I still don’t know how I
survived it,” Abu Jalila said. “Dozens of people were killed, their bodies torn
to pieces. Many others were wounded.”
In the chaos, some fled in panic
while others scrambled to load the dead and injured onto donkey carts as there
were no ambulances or cars nearby. “One young man was blown in half; others had
their limbs ripped off,” Abu Jalila recalled. “These were innocent people,
unarmed, just trying to get food. Why kill them this way?”
Shaken and empty-handed, Abu
Jalila walked four hours back to Gaza City, his legs trembling. When he reached
the tent, his children were already outside, waiting. “They were hoping I’d
bring food,” he said. “I wished I could die rather than see the disappointment
in their eyes.”
He vowed never to return — but
with nothing left to feed his family and no aid distributed since, he knows
he’ll have to try again.
‘We knew we could die. But what
choice do we have?’
Similar massacres have occurred
in southern Gaza. Zahiya Al-Samour, 44, could barely stand after running over
two kilometers while fleeing an Israeli attack on crowds gathered for aid in
the Tahlia area of central Khan Younis.
Struggling to catch her breath,
she told +972: “My husband died of cancer last year. I can’t provide for my
children. There’s no food in the house, not since the blockade and the halt in
aid deliveries that used to sustain us during the war.”
Driven by desperation, Al-Samour
went to Tahlia on the night of June 16, hoping to be among the first in line
for the arriving aid trucks. Along with thousands of others, she camped out
along the road.
But the next morning, as people
waited near Al-Rashid Street, tank shells suddenly rained down on the crowd,
killing over 50 people.
“I saw people losing limbs,
bodies torn apart,” she recounted. “Three of my neighbors from Al-Zaneh [north
of Khan Younis] were killed. Their bodies were unrecognizable.”
Though she escaped without
physical injury, the trauma lingers. “My heart is still trembling,” she said.
“I watched people die while others bled on donkey carts; there were no
ambulances.”
She returned empty-handed to the
tent she erected in Al-Mawasi after the Israeli army ordered her neighborhood
to evacuate. “My children are hungry,” she said, her voice cracking. “They’re
waiting for me to bring food. I don’t know what to tell them.”
At Nasser Hospital, 22-year-old
Mohammad Al-Basyouni lies recovering from a gunshot wound to his back. He was
shot on May 25 while trying to collect food in the Al-Shakoush area of Rafah.
“I woke up at dawn and left home
[in the Fash Farsh area, between Rafah and Khan Younis] with one goal: to get
flour for my sick father,” he told +972. “My mother begged me not to go, but I
insisted. We had no food. My father is ill, and we needed help.
“I left around 6 a.m., and soon
after I arrived, gunfire broke out,” Al-Basyouni recounted. “I was hit while
fleeing — a sniper shot me in the back.” He was rushed to surgery in a tuk-tuk.
“I survived, but others didn’t. Some came back in body bags.”
He paused, then added quietly:
“We knew we could die. But what choice do we have? Hunger is a killer. We want
the war and siege to end. We want this nightmare to be over. I came back
wounded, and I brought nothing home. Now my sick father has lost his only
provider.”
‘We looked like animals waiting
for the feeding lot to open’
Despite living in central Gaza
City after being displaced with his family from Beit Hanoun, 48-year-old
Mahmoud Al-Kafarna set out on June 15 for the aid center run by GHF in far
southwest Khan Younis.
His journey took him hours on
foot to Nuseirat, then by tuk-tuk to Fash Farsh, a known gathering spot for
those seeking food. He and others walked from 7:30 p.m. until 2:30 a.m.,
eventually sheltering at Mu’awiyah Mosque until the Israeli checkpoint opened.
At dawn, they approached a sand
barrier guarded by Israeli forces. A voice from behind the barrier barked
through a loudspeaker: “The aid center is closed. There is no distribution. You
must go home.”
Al-Kafarna, like many others,
stayed put — familiar with these tactics to thin the crowds. Then came the
threats: “Leave or we open fire,” followed by insults like, “You dogs.”
Before they even finished their
warning, Israeli forces began firing from their position about one kilometer
away from where the crowd had gathered. “Bullets flew overhead,” Al-Kafarna
recounted. “Dozens were hit. No one could lift their heads.” Some youth managed
to evacuate the wounded to a nearby Red Cross facility, but many didn’t make
it.
When a second announcement
allowed entry half an hour later, the crowd surged forward, running two
kilometers with hands raised and white bags lifted — a gesture of surrender.
Then he and others navigated another two kilometers past the checkpoint, guarded
by heavily armed private contractors.
“You’ll find them exactly as
Hollywood portrays them: armed to the teeth, wearing dark sunglasses and
bulletproof vests marked with the American flag, earpieces behind their ears,
their weapons aimed directly at our bare chests,” Al-Kafarna recalled. “They
shoot at the ground beneath the feet of anyone who tries to approach the aid,
which is placed behind a hill they’re stationed on.”
When they finally reached the aid
stockpile behind a hill, “it was chaos,” Al-Kafarna recalled. “No order, no
fairness, just survival.”
To avoid being trampled or
attacked, people carried knives or moved in coordinated groups. “Once you
grabbed a box, you emptied it into your bag and ran. If you stopped, you’d be
robbed or crushed.”
What did he manage to take home?
“Two kilos of lentils, some pasta, salt, flour, oil, a few cans of beans.”
Al-Kafarna paused, eyes heavy. “Was it worth it? The bullets, the bodies, the
crawl through death? This is how far we’ve fallen, begging for survival at the
barrel of a gun.
“We looked like animals waiting
for the feeding lot to open in a barn devoid of morality or compassion,” he
continued. “Hunger has driven us to seek food from the hands of our enemy —
food wrapped in humiliation and disgrace — after once living with dignity.”
No comments:
Post a Comment