Crowds Storm US-Backed Group’s New AID Distribution Center

Crowd of Palestinians have set up a distribution site in Gaza by a controversial American and Israeli group, a day after it started working there.

Videos showed people who walked over torn fences and earthberms on the compound of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in the southern city of Rafah.

The group said that at some point his team fell back because the figures looking for help was so great. The Israeli army said that troops in the neighborhood have fired warning shots.

The GHF, which uses armed American security contractors, wants to circumvent the UN as the most important supplier of Aid in Gaza, where experts have warned of an imminent famine after an Israeli blockade of 11 weeks recently relaxed.

The UN said that Rafah’s videos were “heartbreaking” and that it had a detailed plan that was ready to get enough help for the 2.1 million population.

The UN and many aid groups have refused to collaborate with the plans of GHF, which they say they contradict the humanitarian principles and seem to look like “aid”.

They have warned that the system will exclude practically people with mobility problems, forcing further displacement, exposes thousands of people to damage, making political and military goals conditional and have set an unacceptable precedent for assistance around the world.

Israel has said that an alternative to the current auxiliary system is needed to prevent Hamas from auxiliary cultivation, which the group denies.

The GHF announced on Monday that it “started operations in Gaza” and began to give supplies to Palestinians on his distribution sites.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli army confirmed two locations in the Tal Al -Sultan -Neigheur of Rafah and the Morag -Gang -an East -west military zone that separates the city from the rest of Gaza -had started spreading food to families.

Around the same time, the Israeli and Palestinian media shared photos with long queues of Palestinians on the Tal Al-Sultan site.

But just over an hour later they started posting videos with thousands of men, women and children who flowed into the compound. In one clip, some people see running and diving while some gunshots seem to be.

Witnesses described a scene of chaos while people seized food packages and other help from the site. They also said that Israeli troops who were stationed in the neighborhood had opened fire.

“The situation was extremely difficult. They left only 50 people at the same time,” a man told the daily radio program of BBC Arabic Midden -Oost. “In the end, Chaos broke out – people climbed the gates, attacked others and took all (help).”

“It was a humiliating experience,” he added. “We suffered a lot due to hunger. We are just looking for a little sugar to make a cup of tea and a piece of bread to eat.”

A woman said that hunger and poverty “everyone had overwhelmed”.

“People are exhausted – willing to do everything, even risk their lives – just to find food and feed their children.”

A statement from the GHF acknowledged that “the needs are great on the spot” and said that so far it had handed out about 8,000 food boxes to feed on five and a half people for three and a half days a partnership with local non-governmental organizations.

However, it said that the Palestinians had experienced a few hours of delays when accessing one site “due to blockades imposed by Hamas”.

“At a certain moment in the late afternoon, the number of people on the SBS (secure distribution site) was such that the GHF team fell back to ensure that a small number of Gazans safely help and disappear. This was done in accordance with the GHF protocol to prevent victims.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that his troops “had fired warning shots in the area outside the compound”.

“Control over the situation was determined, the food distribution activities are expected to continue as planned, and the safety of IDF troops was not affected,” it said.

Gaza, run by Hamas, said that Israel’s efforts to divide the help had failed “miserably”.

During a press conference in New York, spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said: “We watched the video coming from Gaza around one of the distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And to be honest, these videos, these images, are heartbreaking.”

“We and our partners have a detailed, fundamental, operational healthy plan that is supported by the Member States to get help to a desperate population. We continue to emphasize that a meaningful upscaling of humanitarian operations is essential to prevent famine and to meet the needs of all citizens they are,” he added.

The spokeswoman for the US Department of Foreign Affairs called the UN criticism “the highlight of hypocrisy”.

“It’s a shame, because the problem here gives help to Gaza, and then it suddenly goes into complaints about style or the nature of who does it,” Tammy Bruce told reporters.

The GHF is initially planning to set up four distribution sites in the south of and Central Gaza, where Palestinians are able to collect food and other help for their families. It says that by the end of this week it is feeding a million people – slightly less than half of the population.

The sites are intended to be protected by American contractors, with Israeli troops that patrol the circumference. To gain access to them, Palestinians are expected to have to undergo identity controls and screening for involvement in Hamas.

UN and other aid organizations have insisted that they will not collaborate with a schedule that does not respect fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.

On Sunday evening, Jake Wood resigned as executive director of the GHF and said that the group of the group could not work in a way that would be able to fulfill those principles.

The board of the GHF rejected the criticism and accused “those who benefit from the status quo” of more focused on “tearing this apart than getting help in”.

The group also claimed on Monday that Hamas had made the death threats for NGOs who support his distribution sites and tried to block citizens to gain access to the help.

Hamas has publicly warned Palestinians not to work with the GHF system.

Israel imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed his military offensive two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefires with Hamas. It said that the steps were meant to put pressure on the armed group to release the 58 hostages that are still being held in Gaza, of whom a maximum of 23 is supposed to live.

On May 19, the Israeli army launched an extensive offensive that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that troops would see “control over all areas” of Gaza. The plan is said to be completely cleaning up the north of citizens and moving them in the south by violence.

Netanyahu also said that Israel would temporarily relieve the blockade and allow a “basic” amount of food in Gaza to prevent a famine, after pressure from allies in the US.

Since then, the Israeli authorities say that they have allowed at least 665 trucks, a lot of humanitarian aid, including flower, baby food and medical supplies, to Gaza.

The head of the UN’s head food program, however, warned on Sunday that the help was only a “drop in the bucket” of what was needed on the territory to turn the catastrophic levels of hunger, in the midst of important basic food shortages and enveloping prices.

Half a million people will be confronted with starvation in the coming months, according to an assessment by the integrated classification of the Food Security phase (IPC) by the VN-Supported Classification.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the cross -border attack of Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were held hostage.

Since then, at least 54,056 people have been killed in Gaza, including 3,901 in the last 10 weeks, according to Hamas-Runned Health Minister of Hamas.