Israel is pretending to feed Palestinians while continuing to starve them

This just keeps getting more grotesque...

By now, you’ve probably seen the images of Palestinians being crammed into cattle holds and forced to beg soldiers for food. They had to stand in blistering heat for hours after walking ten to fifteen miles, only to be given meagre scraps, or in most cases, be turned away without food. Over 30 people were reportedly abducted by IDF soldiers while queuing, and others were shot.

Three Palestinians have reportedly been killed and 46 injured during this so-called “aid distribution effort”. The smiling teen on the right, who had just received aid a few hours earlier, was reportedly shot dead by an Israeli sniper.

Here is a clip of an emaciated man explaining he walked 10 km to get aid and the IDF killed a young man in front of him. I’m unclear if he is talking about the teen in the above picture or someone else, but either way, you can see how going for aid is fraught with danger for Palestinians, but they have no other choice.

Desperate Palestinians tried to overrun an aid complex in Rafah because it appears food was being deliberately withheld from them. Warning shots were fired to disperse them, but many escaped with food that had not been given out.

The aid distribution effort is being run by a “charity” called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which is composed of US mercenaries working in coordination with IDF soldiers. They have no experience in delivering aid and what they are giving out is hopelessly insufficient.

Take a look at what their aid packages contain. Note how nothing appears to be ready to eat and will require preparation from people living in tents. Good luck feeding your family with that.

Clearly, this is not a serious effort to distribute aid to two million people who are only starving because Israel destroyed 80% of their farmland. It is exactly what you would do if you wanted to make the process as difficult and degrading as possible and wear Palestinians down while maintaining the pretence that you’re helping.

If you doubt what I’m saying, just know the American head of the GHF, Jake Woods, has resigned in disgust, and I hear there have been other resignations. It appears Woods accepted the role with good intentions but realised he would be unable to do his job ethically. He criticised Israel for not allowing sufficient food and provisions into Gaza and said:

“I am proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza. However, it is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”

Woods had previously stated that he “will not be a part of anything that forcibly dislocates or displaces the Palestinian population.”

The UN refuses to work with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, saying: “this particular distribution plan does not accord with our basic principles, including those of impartiality, neutrality, independence.”

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued the following statement:

Only seven aid trucks have been allowed into Gaza so far because Israel is stopping UNRWA and the World Food Programme from entering Gaza. UNRWA says: “We have over 3,000 trucks, not only of food, but also medicines… waiting for the green light to go in. They're carrying medicines and they are expiring soon.”

The US claims the GHF has distributed enough food to feed 40,000 people (2% of the Gaza population) for 3.5 days, however, a Gaza relief coordinator called Eyad Amawi claims even that figure is exaggerated and insists Gaza needs 600 aid trucks a day. He said more in the following statement:

You would think a three-month starvation blockade followed by an insincere aid effort would be a moment of shame for even the most ardent Zionist. Instead, they’ve come on social media to say this proves no genocide is happening and the IDF is the world’s most moral army and other such nonsense.

“Which other army would feed their enemy?” they ask, admitting they see civilians as the enemy. “It looks no different from queues at an airport” they insist, ignoring that they’ve been depriving these people of food for nearly three months. “At Auschwitz they killed people, we feed them”, they brag, ignoring that people were fed at Auschwitz too.

The whole narrative is that these horrendous scenes represent a generous aid distribution effort, but this is not how you distribute aid. No other aid organisation funnels people into cattle holds, makes them stand in uncomfortable conditions for hours, hands out a few meagre scraps to a small number of people and refuses to feed the rest, then opens fire to disperse them.

Aside from anything else, you’re asking the victims of a genocide to go to the soldiers who are exterminating them and beg. It’s incredibly dehumanising. Those same soldiers are about to cram the Gaza population into three concentration camps where they will have full control over every aspect of their lives. To imply any part of this process is ethical is frankly grotesque.

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