At Least 40 Palestinians Martyred in “Israeli” Attacks on US-Backed Aid Sites in Gaza

By Staff, Agencies

"Israel" has carried out two deadly attacks on newly established aid sites run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation [GHF], claiming lives of dozens of Palestinians in the third and fourth such attacks on the aid distribution centers in Gaza since they began operating last week.

Early on Sunday morning, the "Israeli" occupation forces [IOF] opened fire, causing at least 40 people to lose their lives and injuring 150 others at a GHF site in Rafah.

Soon after, a Palestinian was reported martyred in a shooting at the GHF’s distribution point, in Gaza City, south of the so-called "Netzarim" Corridor.

The US-backed aid sites began operations in the Gaza Strip last Monday. Early the next morning, as thousands of Palestinians lined up at the aid site, IOF opened fire, claiming three Palestinians and injuring dozens.

The GHF said it opened a second site on Wednesday, the same day that IOF again opened fire on aid seekers at one of its sites west of Rafah, this time causing at least six Palestinians to lose their lives.

Gaza Media Office said in a statement on Sunday that in less than a week the IOF has claimed 50 people's lives and wounded hundreds at GHF sites.

 “[These killings] reflect the nature of these areas as mass death traps, not humanitarian relief points,” the statement warned.

“We confirm to the entire world that what is happening is a systematic and malicious use of aid as a tool of war, employed to blackmail starving civilians and forcibly gather them in exposed killing points, managed and monitored by the IOF and funded and politically covered by the occupation and the US administration, which bears full moral and legal responsibility for these crimes,” it added.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP] has condemned “the new massacre of the starving people in Rafah” saying it was “a genocide with international complicity and American participation.”

Hamas in a statement on Sunday also condemned the “horrific massacre” and said the resistance group holds the "Israeli" entity and the US administration responsible for the crime.

“This massacre confirms the fascist nature of the occupation and its criminal objectives behind this mechanism, where it uses centers under its control as traps to lure starving innocent people, practicing the most brutal forms of killing, humiliation, and abuse against them,” it noted.

GHF is an "Israel"-US-backed group, based in Geneva that has been set up to function as an alternative to the already established methods of aid delivery, through UN-affiliated organizations, to Gaza.

GHF has claimed that since "Israel" allowed for a limited entrance of humanitarian aid into Gaza, it has delivered and distributed “many” truckloads of food among the population.

The Geneva-based group has claimed that based on the new method of delivery and distribution, designed by "Israel" and the US, it will distribute 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA] spokesperson, Jens Laerke, said about GHF that “It is a distraction from what is actually needed, which is a reopening of all the crossings into Gaza; a secure environment within Gaza; and faster facilitation of permissions and final approvals of all the emergency supplies that we have just outside the border that need to get in.”