Human Rights Watch slams "death trap" US-backed aid centers in Gaza
Gaza - Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Israeli forces operating outside US-backed aid centers in Gaza of routinely killing Palestinian civilians seeking food, as well as using starvation as a weapon of war.
"US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths," said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
After nearly 22 months of all-out Israeli assault on Gaza, the "worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding" and people are starving to death, according to a UN-mandated expert report.
Israel and the US have backed a private aid operation run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) at four sites inside Gaza, operated by US military contractors and the Israeli army.
GHF launched its operations in late May, sidelining the longstanding UN-led humanitarian system amid a brutal Israeli blockade.
Since then, witnesses, the civil defense agency, and correspondents inside Gaza have reported frequent incidents in which Israeli troops have opened fire on crowds of desperate Palestinian civilians approaching GHF centers seeking food.
At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at GHF sites between May 27 and July 31 – most by the Israeli military – according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families," HRW's Wille said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was expected in Gaza on Friday to inspect at least one GHF food distribution site, as international pressure mounts for an end to Israel's wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people.
Cover photo: REUTERS