Jacob Montag
After blocking shipments of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip for nearly three months and forcing many Palestinians to the brink of starvation, Israel has allowed the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to open aid distribution centers in parts of southern Gaza surrounded by the occupation forces. These include one in Rafah and one in the “Morag Corridor” between Rafah and Khan Younis. Many Palestinians have been forced to travel several miles in order to obtain food to feed their families, and those in northern Gaza have been largely excluded from receiving aid due to the lack of distribution centers nearby. For those able to make it to a distribution center, the process of receiving food has been described as painfully slow, bureaucratic, and violent.
Each GHF distribution hub is guarded by armed private security contractors who work for a U.S.-based company and surrounded by chain-link fences, resembling a concentration camp. In order to receive aid, Palestinians are required to provide ID and undergo an eye scan. Several Palestinians have reportedly been arrested or disappeared as they waited in line to receive aid. On multiple occasions, crowds of hungry Palestinians have stormed the aid distribution centers to seize food and equipment, forcing the armed security personnel to flee their posts. In response, the occupation forces and their collaborators have repeatedly opened fire on the Palestinians as they seized food, killing at least 40 and injuring over 100.
This system of aid distribution has received widespread international condemnation, including from the United Nations and several humanitarian aid organizations, saying it will “weaponize aid” for Israeli military and political purposes. By locating all of the aid distribution centers in southern Gaza, the Zionists and U.S. imperialists are seeking to force the Palestinian civilian population to concentrate themselves into the area, which has been surrounded by Israeli occupation forces as part of their latest operation “Gideon’s Chariots” aimed at the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip and its complete military occupation. The operation has already faced setbacks due to low morale and defection in the Israeli armed forces as well as a string of recent successful ambushes by Palestinian resistance fighters.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that through this aid distribution system, the civilian population of Gaza can be moved into a “sterile zone” in southern Gaza as the occupation forces fight the Palestinian armed resistance elsewhere throughout the Strip. He also stated that once Palestinians from elsewhere relocate to southern Gaza, “they don’t necessarily go back.” Bezalal Smotrich, the ultra-reactionary Israeli finance minister, recently described the current operations of the Israeli occupation forces as a means to ultimately expel Palestinians from Gaza and “change the course of history”. Despite such talk, Palestinian forces have maintained operational capacity and continue to engage Zionist troops throughout the territory, both from afar with rocket and sniper attacks as well as close-quarter combat.
In response to the Palestinians storming an aid distribution center and overrunning U.S.-Israeli security personnel, the leading Palestinian armed resistance group Hamas stated, “What took place today is definitive proof of the occupation’s failure in managing the humanitarian crisis it deliberately created through policies of starvation, siege, and bombardment.” By driving the Palestinians to starvation, Israel and the U.S. continue to engender popular resistance to their genocidal plans. The forcible seizures of food supplies by the people of Gaza in the face of armed mercenaries are one of the many manifestations of this trend, which find its highest expression in the latest series of successful armed operations and recruitment campaigns carried out by resistance forces.
Photo: Palestinians in Gaza are forced to wait for the distribution of “aid” by US-Israeli forces in tightly confined areas resembling concentration camps. Photo retrieved from Resistance News Network.
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