Aid Turns to Carnage: Occupation Turns Relief Zones into Kill Zones
At least 27 Palestinians were killed and over 180 injured on Saturday when occupation forces opened fire on a crowd of civilians waiting for humanitarian aid near the Al-Shakoush aid distribution point, north of Rafah in southern Gaza, WAFA news agency reported, citing local sources.
Medical sources affirmed that the total death toll across Gaza has risen to 98 since the early hours of Saturday, amid ongoing “Israeli” shelling and gunfire in multiple areas of the besieged enclave.
On Friday, the U.N. rights office said it had recorded at least 798 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the U.S.- and “Israeli-backed” Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near convoys run by other relief groups.
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians trying to reach the GHF’s aid hubs in zones where occupation forces operate, the United Nations has called its aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
“(From May 27) up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” U.N. rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva.
The OHCHR said it based its figures on sources such as information from hospitals in Gaza, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs, and its partners on the ground.
“We’ve raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food,” she said.
The GHF is an American organization, backed by the Zionist entity and the American government. This militarised system is primarily staffed by American private security contractors and guarded by the occupation forces.
‘I have never seen a similar system applied in any conflict in the world that creates this kind of death trap, killing people who are already starving … It’s a total war crime,’ said Hilal Elver, former UN special rapporteur on the right to food.
Richard Falk, the former rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, told Anadolu news agency that “Enticing civilians, who are already starving, to come for food and then shooting them with live ammunition—that’s certainly a crime against humanity.”
