HRW accuses Israel of routinely killing Gazans seeking aid at GHF sites

Human Rights Watch accuses Israeli forces operating outside US-backed aid centres in war-torn Gaza of routinely killing Palestinian civilians seeking food, as well as using starvation as a weapon of war.

“US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths,” says Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.

GHF launched its operations in late May, sidelining the longstanding UN-led humanitarian system just as Israel was beginning to ease a more than two-month aid blockade that led to dire shortages of food and other essentials.

Since then, witnesses, the Hamas-run civil defence agency, and AFP correspondents inside Gaza have reported frequent incidents in which Israeli troops have opened fire on crowds of desperate Palestinian civilians approaching GHF centres seeking food.

At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at GHF sites between May 27 and July 31 — most by the Israeli military — according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, although Israel says the toll is exaggerated.

“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,” HRW’s Wille says in a statement.

The military did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the HRW report.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.