June 27, 2025 – Doctors Without Borders
The Israeli-US food distribution scheme in Gaza that was launched one month ago is forcing Palestinians to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minuscule amounts of aid, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today.
Meanwhile, MSF medical teams have noticed a stark increase in the number of patients with gunshot wounds following frequent violence and attacks at and around the aid distribution sites.
If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot. If they arrive on time, but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot. If they arrive late, they shouldn’t be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone,’ so they get shot.
– Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF Emergency Coordinator in Gaza
More than 20 months into the war and several months of near-total siege, Palestinians are desperate for food and supplies. Small amounts have been administered over the past month by the Israeli-US proxy operating under the name the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The way supplies are distributed forces thousands of Palestinians—who have been starved by a more than 100-day-long Israeli siege—to walk long distances to reach the four distribution sites and fight for scraps of food supplies.
These sites are especially difficult to access for women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. People are often killed and wounded in the chaotic process; over 500 people have been killed and nearly 4,000 have been wounded while trying to get food.
Aid must not be used to further military objectives
“The four distribution sites—all located in areas under the full control of Israeli forces after people had been forcibly displaced from there—are the size of football fields surrounded by watch points, mounds of earth, and barbed wire,” said Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza. “The fenced entrance gives only one access point in or out. GHF workers drop the pallets and the boxes of food and open the fences, allowing thousands in all at once to fight down to the last grain of rice.”
“They were going to kill us one by one. We were hungry, we were just trying to feed our children. What else can I do? A bag of lentils costs around 30–40 shekels [$7–$12]. We do not have that kind of money. Death has become cheaper than survival.”
– Hani Abu Soud, Al-Mawasi Primary Health Care Center community member
This system is a slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid, and it must be immediately dismantled. Aid must not be controlled by a warring party to further its military objectives. Israeli authorities and their allies must lift the siege on food, fuel, medical, and humanitarian supplies and to revert to the pre-existing principled humanitarian system that was coordinated by the United Nations.
“If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot,” Zabalgogeazkoa said. “If they arrive on time, but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot. If they arrive late, they shouldn’t be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone,’ so they get shot.”
“This is not aid—it’s a death trap”
Every day, MSF teams see patients who have been killed or wounded trying to get food at one of these sites. In the MSF field hospital in Deir al-Balah, the number of patients with gunshot wounds increased by 190 percent the week of June 8, compared to the week before. Even fully functioning hospitals would struggle to cope with such a high number of trauma patients flooding emergency rooms every day.
“The fenced entrance gives only one access point in or out. GHF workers drop the pallets and the boxes of food and open the fences, allowing thousands in all at once to fight down to the last grain of rice.”
– Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF Emergency Coordinator in Gaza
“A lot of people were getting directly shot at,” said Hani Abu Soud, a community member at Al-Mawasi Primary Health Care Center. “This is not aid—it’s a death trap. They were going to kill us one by one. We were hungry, we were just trying to feed our children. What else can I do? A bag of lentils costs around 30–40 shekels [$7–$12]. We do not have that kind of money. Death has become cheaper than survival.”
The hospitals still barely functioning in Gaza are devastated, running on minimal supplies of pain relief medication, anesthetics, and blood. Injured patients often seek help at basic health care clinics or field hospitals, since larger hospitals better-equipped to provide treatment for violent trauma have been damaged by Israel’s attacks on health care facilities, with many no longer functioning.
Daily trauma cases arrive at MSF clinic in Mawasi
The MSF clinic in Al-Mawasi, which is not typically equipped to treat trauma patients, has received 423 people wounded at the distribution sites since June 7. Ten or more patients with injuries from violence arrive from distribution sites each day. These wounds require immediate lifesaving treatment, like blood transfusions or surgery, that MSF medical teams cannot provide in a basic health care clinic.
Patients are referred to the few remaining hospitals still functioning like Nasser Hospital. However, with health care so scarce, MSF has received reports of people wounded at aid distribution sites dying from their injuries before they can receive treatment.
The Israeli authorities have used a deliberate tactic of food deprivation against Palestinians in Gaza. They have weaponized food supply by denying it to people, then by limiting it to a trickle, in a complete violation of international humanitarian law. Meanwhile, the international community has seemingly resigned to its role in allowing and perpetuating a campaign consistent with patterns of genocide.
Humanitarian principles exist to enable the facilitation of aid to those who need it most—with dignity. Aid must be delivered at the scale that’s needed to meet the immense needs, consistent with these principles. The people of Gaza are in vital and immediate need of the re-establishment of a genuine aid system and a sustained ceasefire.
