Firing squads or aid

In Gaza today, hunger has a price — and for far too many civilians, that price has been death. The Israeli Newspaper, Haaretz described the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution centers as “Killing Field” where, Israeli soldiers ordered to shoot at civilians queuing for the meager aid. Mothers, fathers, children, and elders — unarmed civilians killed while trying to secure essential food rations. They arrive seeking flour or a bag of food, but leave in body bags.

Launched with propaganda flair, the Israeli designed and US-funded GHF was billed as an “alternative” to UN aid organizations. It promised food, and relief to the besieged stip. What it has delivered instead is organized cruelty: starvation management at gunpoint.

Unlike long-established agencies such as UNRWA or the World Food Programme, (WFP), this foundation has no meaningful aid infrastructure, no distribution network, and no impartial oversight. Following three months of total food blockade, GHF was created not to alleviate suffering, but as part of an apparatus — designed to mask weaponized starvation behind the façade of humanitarian relief.

For over a year and a half, UN bodies like UNRWA successfully delivered food across Gaza, often under Israeli bombardment. Even then, Israeli soldiers either opened fire on civilians waiting for aid convoys or stood by as Israeli-armed, ISIS-affiliated looters hijacked food trucks. Now, the death toll at the GHF “killing field” is rising alarmingly: as of June 25, 549 have been killed and more than 4,000 have been injured.

The Israeli military’s responses for these incidents are as predictable as they are cynical: “We fired warning shots.” “They approached in a threatening manner.” “We are unaware of any shooting.” “We will investigate.” Each excuse is part of a well-rehearsed script to deflect accountability.

Western governments and media accept these non-answers as fact, reinforcing Israel’s impunity and whitewashing war crimes with bureaucratic platitudes.

Such attacks extend far beyond physical harm — they are designed to inflict profound psychological wounds, humiliation, fear and despair. When the simple act of seeking basic sustenance becomes life-threatening, it shatters the human psyche and erodes hope. Targeting the hungry is not just torture; it is an attempt to break the human spirit, deny them of their dignity, making survival itself a relentless, terrifying struggle. Places meant to offer relief and compassion are being transformed by Israel into zones of terror and trauma. Combine the starvation campaign with the deliberatedestructionof homes, shelters, educational system, healthcare facilities, and water and power infrastructure — acts intended to compound the psychological trauma and societal collapse.

These tactics pave the way for the ethnic cleansing of civilians to build more Jewish-only colonies, euphemistically dubbed “emigration” or “Trump’s vision.” For instance, the European Union — and despite its own findings that Israel is violating human rights under the terms of their trade agreement — has taken no meaningful action. Instead of suspending the partnership until those violations are addressed, the EU has treated Israel as an exception, and opted for business as usual.

Even when it condemns attacks by illegal Jewish colonists on Palestinian villages in the West Bank, it absurdly calls on Israel — the very state that armed, funded, and implanted those colonists — to stop these crimes.

Excerpted: ‘Food Aid or Firing Squads’. Courtesy: Counterpunch.org