On June 6, I decided for the first time to head to one of the distribution sites run by what is known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). On the long 12km walk on foot, I was accompanied by a few friends.
I went with a faint hope of getting some food for my family. What we encountered bore no trace of humanity. The scene we saw play out at the distribution centre resembled a battlefield.
Israeli military vehicles stood alongside GHF trucks, with a massive barrier in front of them. Occupation soldiers were stationed on elevated positions, their weapons pointed directly at the Palestinian civilians gathering.
At one point, two trucks arrived and dumped the aid on the ground in a degrading manner. Anyone who tried to approach was met with gunfire from the Israeli soldiers. Eventually, an Israeli soldier announced over a loudspeaker, “Now you can get the aid,” and the crowd rushed towards the boxes.
Men shoved and pushed, children cried, and women trembled from fear and exhaustion. Just a small minority managed to lay their hands on some aid. Some tried to steal from those who had made it. The vast majority – myself included – went back home empty-handed.
It felt as if we were selling our dignity for scraps. I saw it as a deliberate humiliation, a reshaping of the consciousness of our educated society, and its transformation into a broken community.
I went two more times to the GHF site. On the third trip, I was accompanied by Nader, a 23-year-old youth whom I had met during displacement. Nader lived near me and regularly went to the GHF site.
Before the genocide, he worked as a guard at an orphanage in the east of Khan Younis. He did more than guard the shelter; he cared for the children, helped them in their daily lives, and gave them a sense of safety. After his life was destroyed, he took on the responsibility of supporting his family and his relatives’ children.
I would see him returning from aid sites covered in dust from head to toe, utterly exhausted, yet greeting me with a faint smile even when he did not manage to get anything.
On July 19, Nader and my 16-year-old cousin Khaled prepared to go to the GHF site. I decided not to go, having lost all hope in that place, fully convinced it was a trap where Gazans were killed daily under the banner of “humanitarian work”.
They said they would try to get there early to secure food. Nader never returned. Khaled came back wounded with shrapnel in his leg.
Israeli forces had opened fire and launched several shells at the starving civilians. Most of the martyrs had been at the front of the line. Nader was hit by three bullets – in the chest, abdomen, and leg – along with shrapnel from a shell that landed near him.
Nader’s murder was devastating for his family; he was their sole provider. They could find no words to express their grief, only tears that fell on his lifeless body, as they mourned him.
Nader’s death was registered in the grim statistic of Palestinians killed at aid distribution sites, which today stands at 1,500. To the world, he was just a number; to me, he was a good man who had harmed no one but always helped others.
Excerpted: ‘Those who weaponise aid and kill under its cover must face justice’. Courtesy: Aljazeera.com