For most Gazans, staying hungry is better than risking life to get aid

After more than 100 days of complete Israeli ban on the entry of aid and goods into the Gaza Strip, Gaza residents are left with no choice except risking their life to get some food for their hungry children from the American-Israeli aid distribution centres located in a few points in the southern parts of the war-torn enclave.

Everything in Gaza, including food, water and medical supplies has run out. Fuel used to operate water and sewage pumps, hospitals trucks and vehicles used to remove tons of garbage accumulated in the middle of concentration camps has also run out.

There is nothing in Gaza except continuous Israeli bombing of civilians, homes, healthcare centres, schools, displacement camps and tents, communication facilities and water networks. In Gaza, people lose family members every minute.

“The Israeli occupation forces kill an average of one person every 15 minutes, a child every 20 minutes and a woman every 40 minutes,” Director of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr Moneer al Borsh, has said. This is beside the deaths that result from malnutrition and dehydration.

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Amidst this dreadful reality, fathers in Gaza find themselves obliged to walk long distances on foot and risk their life in order to reach the US-Israeli aid distribution centres run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in order to get some food for their children starved by the Israeli occupation that is backed by the US and most Arab and Western powers.

Getting a little amount of food from any of these aid centres is extremely dangerous and lethal as the crowds of starving fathers come under live Israeli tank and gunfire. Tens of them get killed and hundreds are wounded every time they try to reach these aid centres. Sometimes, the Israeli occupation forces use quadcopter drones to drop small bombs over the heads of starving aid seekers or fire artillery shells on them, tearing them into pieces.

Ahmad Yassin, a 35-year-old father of seven children and a husband of cancer patient wife, gave me a horrible account for his journey from the Gaza City to Rafah as he travelled 40 kilometres on foot to get food.

“I agreed with a number of relatives and friends to travel to Rafah and get food from the US-Israeli aid distribution centre located in the west of destroyed city. Everyone had two litres of drinking water in his back pack and started our journey at 12pm. We walked together through the coastal road, which had been destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces,” Yassin said.

The Israeli occupation forces allow only animal carts and motorcycles to move between the southern and northern parts of the occupied Gaza Strip. People have to pay high transportation fares to use these means otherwise they move between both sides of Gaza walking on foot.

“We arrived in Rafah after a 10-hour-walk,” Yassin said, “and everything was alright, but when we were about three kilometres away from the aid distribution centre, we started to walk amidst rubble of destroyed homes, and the Israeli occupation forces started firing towards us intermittently. We had to kneel down and run or sometimes to creep on our stomachs. We continued moving this way until we arrived in the aid centre.”

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He added: “When we arrived, it was 1.50am but we were shocked when we found a plot of land with around 1,000 square kilometres surrounded with high sand barricades; it had only one long and narrow entrance with barbed wires on both sides. The Israeli occupation forces continued shooting around us. Every couple of minutes, someone fell down either dead or wounded. It depends on where he was shot.

“At 2am, we heard a voice via loudspeakers. We did not know its source, but it was accompanied with a greenlight and told us to move forward and collect the aid. At this time, all the shooting stopped, then total chaos erupted. It was completely dark, starving people stampeded and the worst thing was that there were not more than 500 food packages while there were more than 50,000 aid seekers. Therefore, each package was sought by at least ten people. They quarrelled, they pulled the package, ripped it and the aid – flour – rapped with paper was poured on the ground or damaged. Each one took one or two cans.

“Ten minutes later, a yellow light flashed and someone via loudspeakers warned us to leave the area very quickly within five minutes. People started to run away and after five minutes a red light also flashed and shooting from all directions began. People ran as fast as they could; a lot of them threw the aid they had in order to be able to climb over the sand barricades and flee.”

For Yassin, he had some bruises in both legs as he was trapped inside the barbed passage; it was a futile journey. He could not get anything for his children, and went back home empty handed.

Alaa al Sawwaf, 24, from Gaza City, told me he went to get aid from the GHF’s aid centre near Gaza Valley, which is about 10km far from his home. “I went there along with one of our neighbours. We arrived near the aid distribution centre and my neighbour was shot and wounded. Thanks to Allah, he suffered a minor injury in his thigh. I carried him on my shoulder and went back home.”

Imad Sarsour and his brother Bilal, both are teens, told me a similar account like Yassin’s. The only difference was the short distance from their home to the GHF’s centre in Gaza Valley. They went back home with 13 kilograms of flour and two small biscuit bags. Imad suffered from a light injury between his shoulders from a shrapnel of a bullet that hit a concrete block he hid behind it when the Israeli occupation forces opened fire at them. He was OK.

Yassan, Al Sawwaf and brothers Sarsour told me that they would never go back to get aid from the GHF’s aid centres. Iyad’s 4-year-old daughter told me: “I am happy that my dad is back wounded, not dead. I prefer to remain starving rather than asking my dad to go get some aid from the Americans.”

UNRWA’s Commissioner General Philppo Lazzarini along with many other officials from international organisations and rights groups have condemned the GHF’s aid distribution mechanism as a “death trap.”

“Aid distribution has become a death trap,” Lazzarini has said, pointing out to “mass casualties including scores of injured and killed among starving civilians” due to Israelis targeting them, stressing that this mechanism is “humiliating, dangerous, and exacerbates starvation.”

He also called it as dystopian “hunger games,” insisting that aid must be safe and dignified. “This ‘model’ will not address the deepening hunger. The so‑called new way of handling assistance in Gaza is most degrading, humiliating and puts lives in danger.”

According to Gaza Media Office, medical sources and human rights groups, as of 23 June 2025, the Israeli occupation forces have killed 450 starving civilians and wounded over 3,465 others near Gaza GHF’s aid distribution points. It also stated that there are confirmed reports about 39 missing.

Most of the casualties occurred due to live fire, drone attacks and crowd crushes during chaotic aid distributions. The majority of victims were starving civilians, including children and elderly, attempting to get food aid.

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