Despair of families watching attacks on Gaza food aid sites

The attack began at 9pm last Thursday. Ibrahim al-Qattrawi pushed his face into the dirt, waiting for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) food distribution point to open, while Israeli quadcopters circled overhead. Bullets and artillery shells tore through the air around him.

An hour later, Al-Qattrawi, 21, sprinted towards the aid station, along the Netzarim corridor – an Israeli military zone that now divides Gaza. “When we got to the distribution point, there was only enough aid for 5% of those who came,” he told The Observer.

As the world’s attention has shifted to Iran and Israel, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has deepened. Al-Qattrawi estimates that each day 30,000 people gatherat the aid site. Netzarim is one of four sites run by GHF, the controversial distribution group backed by Israel and the US. In the seven days following the Israeli attack on Iran, at least 225 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

“Airstrikes have continued on a near daily basis,” said Ramzi Kaiss of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. “And in a climate of complete impunity.”

“Before the war on Iran there was more pressure on Israel to change its policies,” said Budour Hassan, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

“There was talk of the New York Conference on Palestinian statehood. There was the issue of the EU Association Agreement with Israel on human rights. Now, Israel has used this war to deflect any attention from this, from the devastating policies it continues to impose on Gaza.”

Hassan said that while Israeli airstrikes have decreased, attacks on civilians – particularly those at aid points – have increased. The GHF denied that any shooting occurred near its distribution site. The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots at people approaching soldiers, and that an IAF jet struck “several suspects” who continued to advance.

Though the war between Israel and Hezbollah ended last November, violence has persisted in Lebanon. Mohamed Abdel Salam Nasrallah, one of Lebanon’s best-known beekeepers, was one of three people killed by Israeli drone strikes this week.

Last Wednesday evening an Iranian official warned that any US strikes on Iran would prompt Hezbollah to re-enter the conflict, just as it did in support of Hamas on 8 October 2023.

A source within the group denied this. After months of fighting, it is unclear whether Hezbollah has the resources to rejoin the conflict.

In Gaza apocalyptic scenes continue. “We feel humiliated, helpless and broken,” said Al-Qattrawi, after failing to secure food. “We feel that our lives are so cheap that it’s like we are living an episode of Squid Game. Whoever moves, dies.”

Photograph by Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu via Getty Images