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MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES has said that an Israeli-US food distribution scheme in Gaza “must be dismantled”.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) is “degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies”.
The GHF, backed by armed US contractors with Israeli troops on the perimeter, began operations at the end of May, two months after Israel imposed a total aid blockade on Gaza amid after breaking a ceasefire.
Since then, over 500 Palestinians have been killed near aid centres while trying to receive supplies. On a number of occasions, Israeli forces have opened fire on crowds of hungry people who were making their way to distribution points operated by the GHF.
Last week, members of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the army has deliberately fired at Palestinians near aid distribution sites over the past month to drive them away, even though they posed no threat.
In a statement, MSF said: “With over 500 people killed and nearly 4,000 wounded while seeking food, this scheme is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid and must be immediately dismantled.”
The organisation said the way the GHF distributes supplies “forces thousands of Palestinians, who have been starved by an over 100 day-long Israeli siege, to walk long distances to reach the four distribution sites and fight for scraps of food supplies”.
It said the sites hinder women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities from accessing aid, with people being killed and wounded in the chaotic process.
Yet each renewed atrocity now happens with barely a shrug, let alone condemnation, from an international community seemingly resigned to its role in allowing and perpetuating a campaign consistent with patterns of genocide. This cannot be allowed to continue.
The organisation continued: “Every day, MSF teams see patients who have been killed or wounded trying to get food at one of these sites.”
It called on Israel “to lift the siege on food, fuel, medical, and humanitarian supplies” and to revert to the pre-existing humanitarian system, coordinated by the UN.
Last week, the US approved $30 million in funding for the GHF, its first direct funding for the controversial relief effort, and urged other countries to follow suit.
On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes and gunfire killed 23 people in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, including at least three children.
The Israeli military issued an evacuation order on Sunday for parts of Gaza City and nearby areas in the territory’s north, warning of imminent action there.
Meanwhile, dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged around a military base in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, setting fires, vandalising military vehicles, spraying graffiti and attacking soldiers.
The unrest came after several attacks in the West Bank carried out by Jewish settlers and anger at their arrests by security forces attempting to contain the violence over the past few days.
More than 100 settlers entered the West Bank town of Kfar Malik on Wednesday evening, setting property ablaze and opening fire on Palestinians who tried to stop them, Najeb Rostom, head of the local council, said.
Three Palestinians were killed after the military intervened. Israeli security forces said they arrested five settlers.
“No civilised country can tolerate violent and anarchic acts of burning a military facility, damaging IDF property and attacking security personnel by citizens of the country,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Footage on Israeli media showed dozens of young, religious men typically associated with “hilltop youth”, an extremist movement of Israeli settlers who occupy West Bank hilltops and have been accused of attacking Palestinians and their property.
The footage showed security forces using stun grenades as dozens of settlers gathered around the military base just north of Ramallah.
The Israeli military released photos of the infrastructure burned in the attack, which it said included “systems that help thwart terrorist attacks and maintain security”.
Far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has often defended Israelis accused of similar crimes, offered a rare condemnation of Sunday’s violence.
“Attacking security forces, security facilities, and IDF soldiers who are our brothers, our protectors, is a red line, and must be dealt with in full severity. We are brothers,” he wrote on X.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid told Israel’s Army radio that the riots were carried out by “Jewish terrorists, gangs of criminals, who feel backed by the (governing) coalition”.
A hard-line supporter of Jewish settlements, Ben-Gvir was previously convicted in Israel of racist incitement and support for terrorist groups, and has called for the deportation of all Arab citizens from Israel.
Though once widely shunned by Israel’s politicians, Ben-Gvir’s influence has grown and alongside a shift to the right in the country’s electorate has further emboldened violence from extremist settlers in the West Bank.
Defence minister Israel Katz today vowed to “eradicate this violence from the root” and implored the extremist settlers to remember that many of the security forces are exhausted reservists serving multiple rounds of duty.
Throughout the current conflict in Gaza, Palestinian residents in the West Bank have reported a major increase in Israeli checkpoints and delays across the territory.
Meanwhile, Israel says threats from the West Bank against its citizens are on the rise.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war.
Settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law, but they have grown significantly in the last number of decades.
More than 200 settlements have been constructed in the occupied West Bank since 1967, covering more than 10% of its territory. More than 100 of these have legal status under Israeli law.
The official boundaries of settlements are off limits to Palestinians because they are declared by Israel as ‘closed military areas’.
The West Bank is home to more than three million Palestinians.
With reporting from Press Association
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