Gunfire Communication with “Zombie Hordes”: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the IDF

It’s made to order.  First, eliminate the aid system after creating circumstances of enormous suffering.  Then, kill, starve, vanquish and displace those in need of that aid.  Finally: give the pretence of humanity by ensuring some aid to those whose suffering you created in the first place. 

As things stand, the system of aid distribution in the Gaza Strip is intended to cause suffering and destruction to recipients.  Since 26 May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an opaquely structured entity with Israeli and US backing, has run the distribution of parcels from a mere four points, a grim joke given the four hundred or so outlets previously operated by the United Nations Palestinian relief agency.  The entire process of seeking aid has been heavily rationed and militarised, with Israeli troops and private contractors exercising murderous force with impunity. Opening times are not set, rendering the journey to the distribution points even more precarious.  When they do open, they do so for short spells.  

Haaretz has run reports quoting soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces claiming to have orders to deliberately fire upon unarmed crowds on their perilous journey to the food sites.  In a 27 June piece, the paper quotes a soldier describing the distribution sites as “a killing field.”  Where he was stationed, “between one and five people were killed every day.”  Those seeking aid were “treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars.  Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they can approach.  Our form of communication is gunfire.” 

The interviewed soldier could recall no instance of return fire. “There’s no enemy, no weapons.”  IDF officers also told the paper that the GHF’s operations had provided a convenient distraction for continuing operations in Gaza, which had been turned into a “backyard”, notably during Israel’s war with Iran.  In the words of a reservist, the Strip had “become a place with its own set of rules.  The loss of human life means nothing.  It’s not even an ‘unfortunate incident’, like they used to say.”

An IDF officer involved in overseeing security at one of the distribution centres was full of understatement.  “Working with a civilian population when your only means of interaction is opening fire – that’s highly problematic, to say the least.”  It was “neither ethically nor morally acceptable for people to have to reach, or fail to reach, a [humanitarian zone] under tank fire, snippers and mortar shells.”

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Much the same story can be found with the security contractors, those enthusiastic killers following in the footsteps of predecessors who treat international humanitarian law as inconvenient if not altogether irrelevant.  Countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq can attest to the blood-soiled record of private military contractors, with the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad city’s Nisour Square by Blackwater USA employees in September 2007 being but one spectacular example.  While those employees faced trial and conviction in a US federal court in 2014 on an assortment of charges – among them murder, manslaughter and attempted manslaughter – such a fate is unlikely for any of those working for the GHF.

On 4 July, the BBC published the observations of a former contractor on the trigger-happy conduct of his colleagues around the food centres.  In one instance, a guard opened fire on women, children and elderly people “moving too slowly away from the site.”  Another contractor, also on location, stood on the berm overlooking the exit to one of the GHF sites, firing 15 to 20 bursts of repetitive fire at the crowd.  “A Palestinian man dropped on the ground motionless.  And then, the other contractor who was standing there was like, ‘damn, I think you got one’.  And then they laughed about it.”

The company had also failed to issue contractors any operating procedures or rules of engagement, except one: “if you feel threatened, shoot – shoot to kill and ask questions later.”  No reference is made to the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers.  To journey to Gaza was to go to a land unencumbered by laws and rules.  “Do what you want,” is the cultural norm of GHF operatives.  And this stands to reason, given the reference of “team leaders” to Gazans seeking aid as “zombie hordes”.

The GHF, in time honoured fashion, have denied these allegations.  Ditto the IDF, that great self-proclaimed stalwart of international law.  It is therefore left to such contributors as Anas Baba, NPR’s producer in the Gaza Strip, to enlighten those who care to read and listen.  As one of the few Palestinian journalists working for a US news outlet in the strip, his observations carry singular weight.   In a recent report, Baba neatly summarised the manufactured brutality behind the seeking of aid in an enclave strangled and suffering gradual extinction.  “I faced Israeli military fire, private US contractors pointing laser beams at my forehead, crowds with knives fighting for rations and masked thieves – to get food from a group supported by the US and Israel called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”.  

If nothing else, it is high time that the GHF scrap any pretence of being humanitarian in its title and admit to its true role: an adjutant to Israel’s program of extirpating Gaza’s Palestinian population.  

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