How the feed queues of Gaza turned into killing zones

It was your sixth attempt in a week, a dangerous hike to the south coast from Gaza down towards a food sales location supported by the USA. Abed Zaydan, 14, and his mother Reem hoped that they would arrive this time before the food went out.

Eight hours after their walk on Tuesday, when they approached the center, the sound of tanks and shots broke out. Zaydan saw corpses at his feet. With his sister and mother, he lay down on the floor next to them and waited for the first light. People began to whisper that it could be sure to move.

From the ground, Zaydan saw how his mother rose before a sniper ball fell on her head with a shot. “Because I’m young, I was afraid and left my mother,” he said. “I ran away.”

Zaydan is one of eight Palestinians who spoke to Financial Times about their attempt last week to reach the Humanitarian Foundation in West Rafah in the Gaza. Her Twilight trips crowded with thousands of people and hoped to approach the auxiliary center before the opening time from 5 a.m. so that they may have the chance to get food.

For Palestinians, who desperately imposed on supplies to Israel, who had imposed a more than two -month blockade on the strip, their attempts to get food from GHF brought more horror than relief. Every day was different, but the dangers they described were the same.

Tanks, quadcopter drones and snipers, of which they said they came from the Israeli army, fired on Palestinians, who were waiting for the site to open.

For the telecommunications worker Ehab Jomaa, it was 4 a.m. on Sunday when shooting opened on the Al-Alam circular traffic.

He and five friends went in the ruins of a bombed beach hotel. They switched off their phones and stayed calm.

Then a quadcopter appeared and started firing warning shots. “It switched on his microphone and said:” You have to go, we will shoot you. “As soon as we got up and ready to go, it moved to another area,” said Jomaa. “It removed a boy seven meters from us in our chest.”

Witnesses who spoke to the FT said that the run began over the last route to the distribution location around 5 a.m. Those who arrived on site often found the whole food disappeared.

Despite the murders, many tried to reach the distribution center for a few days in a row. After Israel’s siege, they were so hungry that they always tried it.

The victims were the hardest over two days. Israeli armed forces killed 27 people and injured 161 on Tuesday morning, the Gaza Ministry of Health said. On Sunday it says that 35 people killed and over 150 were injured by Israeli fire on crowds in the Al-Alam area. All of these killed Sunday were shot in the head or chest, said the Ministry.

The ICRC said that the Rafah Field Hospital received around 180 patients on each of the two days, with the majority suffering from gunshot wounds. Everyone said they tried to reach a distribution center.

Israel contested the characterization of the shootings by the Ministry of Health, but admitted that it had “also” fired “warning” – “additionally” on Tuesday, which had expired or approached the proven access routes.

An Israeli security officer said that some shootings had taken place outside of the Operating times of the GHF locations when the surrounding areas were classified as a “a war zone in which (civilians) were not classified.

The official added that changes to the access routes were made to make them safer. The IDF also claimed that some of the shots were fired by Hamas.

On his fifth trip to the sales place, the 45-year-old Hossam Zorab watched on Tuesday how his friend was shot in front of him. Zorab could not save him and he was determined to find food for his eight children, so he waited with others to rush to the website.

There was no check-in system or an effective input, he said. Instead, the crowds were kept in chess at the shots. “There is no goal, but there is constant shooting from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.

In the distribution centers, boxes with cans and oil were torn open on the sandy floor and people took what they could. Foreign mercenaries laughed when they watched the scene, according to two witnesses. Palestinian contractors in fluorescent vests watched.

GHF did not respond to a request for comments, but previously announced that the shootout took place outside of its sales locations.

Ashraf Abu Shbaker, a father of six years, went to the construction site three times: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. But every time he reached the site, everything was taken.

He tried to ask one of the security entrepreneurs on Tuesday why there was nothing left. He said the contractor Pepper sprayed him in the face. Three other witnesses, including one who was sprayed himself, said that the contractors had used spray and sound grenades within the site.

“I didn’t want to go today. I’m tired,” said Abu Shbaker. “If they want to starve people, they continue, but Debase don’t.”

Abed Zaydan searched for hospitals in the hope of finding his wounded mother and presenting her face alive and in an intensive bed. He was in the Nasser Hospital when a paramedic arrived with three non -identified dead women. Zaydan knew one of them.

“This is not help,” said Zaydan. “It’s a mouse trap.”

Additional reporting by James Shotter in Jerusalem, cartography by Aditi Bhandari,