Starvation Centers, Death Traps

CrossFireArabia
Features
July 19, 2025

The deaths of 21 Palestinian civilians by suffocation, crowd crush, and live fire from US security forces operating in coordination with the Israeli army at an aid distribution centre in Rafah expose the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as an active instrument of the systematic mass killing and starvation policies imposed on Gaza.

These centres are no longer relief sites but death traps, deliberately used to lure starving crowds in scenes marked by humiliation and genocide, which constitutes a grave violation of international law and requires the immediate suspension of GHF’s operations, an urgent investigation, and full criminal accountability.

Documentation by Euro-Med Monitor’s field team revealed that the attack on Wednesday, 16 July 2025, occurred in two phases. The first happened around 4:00 a.m., when Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of civilians gathered on al-Tina Street, north of Rafah, as food aid trucks were being unloaded, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries. Despite the gunfire and casualties, thousands remained. They had no choice but to wait or starve, especially after a GHF worker told them distribution would begin at 6:00 a.m.

Those who fell to the ground could not get up and were trampled. I saw women and children among the victims, and we only managed to escape by stepping over the dead bodies lying there

Abdul Rahman B., one of the survivors

The second phase happened at 6:20 a.m., when crowds surged toward the outer gate of the distribution centre amid severe overcrowding and the closure of the inner gate. This led to a deadly crowd crush, with no safety measures or immediate intervention to prevent or contain the disaster.

Instead of organising the crowds and ensuring their safety, US special forces used pepper spray and fired sound bombs and tear gas at civilians trapped between the outer and inner gates, triggering panic and chaos. Thousands tried to escape, while some attempted to jump into the distribution centre to avoid overcrowding and certain death, only to be met with live fire as well.

The open fire and the resulting violent crowd crush caused the deaths of at least 21 Palestinians, including seven killed by live ammunition and 15 from tear gas inhalation and the crush, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

A review by Euro-Med Monitor of several casualties found no signs of bullet wounds, supporting the conclusion that most victims died from suffocation or being trampled in a closed, overcrowded space with no protective measures in place.

Abdul Rahman B., one of the survivors, told Euro-Med Monitor’s team: “At around 6:15 a.m., a quadcopter arrived and announced that the distribution centre had been opened and required that we head to the gates.”

“People rushed frantically toward the entrances, and when we reached the front gate, we found the inner gate closed and a heavy presence of US forces accompanied by employees speaking Arabic,” said Abdul Rahman. “They asked us to step back 50 metres and enter in groups of no more than 100, but the crowding was so intense that stepping back was impossible.”

He continued: “Minutes later, they began firing sound bombs, followed by tear gas and pepper spray. People were disoriented and suffocating. Some tried to climb the fences to escape, but snipers shot them. Those who fell to the ground could not get up and were trampled. I saw women and children among the victims, and we only managed to escape by stepping over the dead bodies lying there.”

This incident demonstrates that aid distribution centres were deliberately placed in dangerous locations, designed with narrow paths enclosed by barbed-wire fences that can be easily sealed. These routes cannot accommodate the vast numbers of people in need and are fully controlled by the Israeli army, making them resemble elaborate traps for killing and humiliation rather than corridors for humanitarian aid.

GHF, established by Israel to manage its starvation policy, issued a brief statement claiming to have opened an investigation into the incident. This follows a familiar propaganda pattern: whenever starving civilians are killed, an internal investigation is announced, its results are never released, no one is held accountable, and the same crime is repeated without consequence.

An investigation by an organisation established within a framework designed to perpetuate starvation can hardly be considered credible. Given its direct role in managing starvation, GHF must be immediately dismantled and its mandate withdrawn. It operates under the guise of humanitarian work, failing as a neutral intermediary for aid delivery.

GHF functions as a field instrument of blockade, starvation, and killing by operating distribution centres designed to humiliate civilians and gather them in tightly controlled locations under the pretext of “organising” crowds. Rather than protecting those in need, it facilitates the implementation of engineered starvation and creates a closed environment where civilians are killed in the name of humanitarian aid.

Even when a threat is alleged, international law requires security forces to apply force in a proportionate and graduated manner, using lethal force only as a last resort and in response to an imminent and real threat to life. This standard was not met in the documented cases, making the killings a grave and flagrant violation of international law.

The deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians as they seek food, along with the use of starvation as a weapon, is a clear violation of international humanitarian and criminal law. These acts constitute war crimes under the Rome Statute, including wilful killing, targeting civilians, and using starvation as a method of warfare, all of which are strictly prohibited in armed conflicts.

The widespread and systematic nature of these violations against the civilian population fulfils the elements of crimes against humanity, particularly killing, persecution, and inhumane acts causing severe suffering or serious physical or mental harm, when committed as part of a systematic attack targeting civilians.

Placing these crimes in their broader context, including the systematic destruction of means of survival, the denial of aid access, and the imposition of deadly living conditions on the civilian population, along with public incitement by Israeli political and military figures, reveals a clear and deliberate intent to destroy the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. According to Article II of the Genocide Convention, these acts constitute genocide, specifically through the intentional killing of members of the group and the imposition of living conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part.

The international community and complicit governments bear responsibility for the continued crimes against starving civilians at GHF-run aid distribution centres in the Gaza Strip. An immediate halt to GHF operations is essential, along with the launch of an independent international investigation leading to the prosecution of its officials before international and national courts for their involvement in systematic mass killings at distribution sites imposed by the Israeli army as a replacement for the UN mechanism that had operated in the enclave for nearly a year and a half.

International and national judicial bodies must move to hold US President Donald Trump criminally accountable for his complicity in the genocide in the Gaza Strip. This includes his adoption and direct support of the Israeli aid distribution mechanism, imposed by force and transformed into arenas of mass slaughter against starving civilians, as well as his administration’s full-scale provision of military, financial, political, and diplomatic backing that enabled Israel to commit and expand the crime for over 21 months.

The United States, through this organisation and other instruments, continues to provide political, logistical, financial, and military cover for Israel’s crimes, rendering current and former American officials, foremost among them President Donald Trump, subject to international criminal accountability.

Euro-Med Monitor calls for holding all state leaders involved in the genocide committed in the Gaza Strip accountable, whether through direct or indirect participation, by providing political, military, or financial support, or by facilitating its commission in any form. Such acts constitute criminal complicity under Article 25 of the Rome Statute. It holds states that failed to take serious measures to prevent or stop the crime legally responsible under their international obligations, particularly under the Genocide Convention.

A comprehensive and independent international investigation must be launched into the role of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in facilitating and executing serious crimes committed against Palestinian civilians. These investigations should address the individual responsibility of the organisation’s founders, directors, logistics coordinators, team leaders, and any other staff members, whether through planning, facilitating, directly contributing, or knowingly failing to prevent the commission of crimes.

We urge all states with territorial or universal jurisdiction to open immediate criminal investigations against all individuals affiliated with the GHF and its contracted private security firms, in order to hold them accountable for their role in crimes committed against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, particularly including wilful killings, starvation, and cruel or degrading treatment.

All states, both individually and collectively, must fulfil their legal responsibilities by taking urgent action to stop the genocide in the Gaza Strip, through implementing effective measures to protect Palestinian civilians; ensuring Israel’s compliance with international law and the decisions of the International Court of Justice; preventing the implementation of the US-Israeli forced displacement plan; and holding Israel and its more powerful allies accountable for all crimes against the Palestinians in the Strip. The International Criminal Court must implement the arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defence at the earliest opportunity, in accordance with the principle that there is no immunity for international crimes.

The international community must also impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel for its systematic and grave violations of international law. These sanctions should include an arms embargo; an end to all political, financial, and military support; freezing the assets of officials involved in crimes against Palestinians; imposing travel ban on these officials; suspending the operations of Israeli military and security industries companies in international markets; banning involved companies’ access to banking services; and suspending trade privileges and bilateral agreements that provide Israel with economic benefits that enable its continued crimes.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Features

Israel Ethnically Cleanses South Lebanon

CrossFireArabia
April 2, 2026

By Lylla Younes

BEIRUT—On March 28, George Saeed, 62, and his 24-year-old son Elie were driving back to their home in Debel, a village in southern Lebanon close to the border with Israel. It was a route Saeed knew well. He ran a small laundromat beneath his house, where he washed uniforms for a Polish unit in the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed in the nearby village of Tiri. The trip from Tiri used to take a few minutes, but after the main road was bombed by the invading Israeli military he had begun taking a longer route through the neighboring village of Rmeich.

That afternoon, villagers saw George’s car pass through Rmeich and enter Debel, disappearing along the village’s steep, winding roads. When they were roughly 60 meters from their house, the crackle of gunfire rang out, followed by the blare of a stuck car horn.

Elie Louqa, Saeed’s nephew and the former mayor of Debel, was in Beirut when he got a call from his brother describing what had happened. He began contacting UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL), the Lebanese Army, and the Red Cross, asking them to reach the car. Both the Red Cross unit in Rmeich and the nearby UNIFIL contingent told Louqa they could not secure permission from their superiors to move.

After about 90 minutes, a group of young men from the village decided to go themselves. Carrying white blankets and mattresses to signal they were civilians, they reached the site of the attack and found the father and son dead inside their bullet-ridden car. They pulled the bodies out and carried them to the village cemetery for burial.“You won’t find a man with cleaner hands. He was generous to a fault,” Louqa told Drop Site News. “Go and ask the people of our villages who George Saeed was.

”The killings were just one in a series of attacks on residents of several villages along the southern border who have chosen to remain in their homes despite repeated sweeping displacement orders by the Israeli military covering all of southern Lebanon.

Earlier this week, the Lebanese army announced its forces had withdrawn from southern border villages, leaving residents without even the semblance of protection. At least six Lebanese soldiers have been killed by Israel over the past month. The army said its troops had to “reposition” as they were being encircled and cut off from their supply lines but claimed it continued to “stand by residents” by “maintaining a group of military personnel” in the villages. What this meant in practice, according to residents, was that soldiers from the area could stay in their homes provided they did not wear army uniforms or carry arms.

“We don’t know why the army made this decision,” said Boutros al-Rai, a local farmer and civilian administrator. “For us, its presence made us feel protected.”Drop Site News is reader-supported. Consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Lebanon is being ravaged as Israel’s escalated assault enters its second month. More than 1,300 people have been killed, including over 120 children, and over 4,000 injured in a relentless onslaught. Israel has issued displacement orders covering around 15% of Lebanese territory and more than 1.1 million people—about a fifth of the country’s population—have been forced from their homes. Emergency workers have also been increasingly targeted, with over 50 killed over the past four weeks.

Despite a ceasefire agreement in November 2024, Israel continued to carry out near daily attacks and occupied five hilltop positions on Lebanese territory. When Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran after the U.S. and Israel launched a war on Tehran, Israel launched a full scale aerial assault and ground invasion on Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Tuesday that the Israeli military plans to occupy the entire area south of the Litani River and will not allow hundreds of thousands of residents to return to their homes, making a reference to areas in Gaza that have been completely razed in the genocide. “The return of over 600,000 residents of the area south of the Litani River will be completely prohibited until the safety and security of residents of the north is ensured, similar to the model of Rafah and Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip,” Katz said.

The Israeli military also appears to be engaged in a campaign to ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon of its Shia residents. Around three weeks ago, Israeli military officials called the heads of a cluster of majority Christian villages in southeastern Lebanon and ordered them to force out any “displaced people” that had taken refuge there, according to a municipal official in one of the villages, who spoke to Drop Site on condition of anonymity. “Displaced people” was a thinly-veiled reference to Shia residents who had been forced to flee nearby towns like Khiam.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa used explicitly sectarian language two weeks ago in referencing Israel’s military campaign in the south. “We asked the Israelis to leave the Christian villages in southern Lebanon and requested that the army keep a unit stationed there,” Issa said in a meeting with Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rah.

Over the past week, the Israeli military made a new round of phone calls to leaders in majority Sunni villages Chebaa and Kfarchouba, warning them to not accept any non-locals into their village. Mohammad Hammoud, a spokesperson for the town of Chebaa, confirmed the authenticity of a video circulating online showing a call received on Tuesday by local leader Ibrahim Nabaa. Over the phone, an Israeli soldier warned that the village would be targeted if officials failed to keep resistance fighters out. Hammoud said that the municipality had organized a small police force to conduct patrols at night and make sure no outsiders entered—measures that, he hoped, would spare residents their homes and land.

As part of its invasion of southern Lebanon, the Israeli military is in the midst of a scorched earth campaign, systematically destroying homes and civilian infrastructure in border villages. Louqa, the former mayor of Debel, said he fielded frantic calls on Wednesday from village residents who told him that occupation forces had begun to blow up homes on the village periphery. The homes were empty, he explained, because in times of war, residents often move closer to the village center for safety.

“These homes are in Debel—not on the outskirts, not kilometers away,” Boutros al-Rai, a local official told Drop Site, adding that at least 10 houses had been demolished on Wednesday alone. “They’re blowing them up one by one. We don’t know why or how.”Around 1,700 people remain in Debel, according to al-Rai, down from 2,500 before the war. Once the escalation began on March 2, residents started making trips to the nearby village of Rmeich to buy essential goods. But after the killing of George and Elie Saeed last week, and without any support from UNIFIL or the withdrawn Lebanese army, that route was no longer considered safe.

“People have supplies for a week or two,” al-Rai said. “They rely on each other. But it’s not enough for much longer.”

Access to medical care is also severely limited. In Rmeich, where about 6,000 people remain, there is no hospital. Residents depend on coordinated evacuations, typically requiring approval from the Lebanese Army as well as UNIFIL, which then communicates with Israeli occupation forces.

Elie Shoufani, a local official and Red Cross volunteer, said the process is inconsistent. “Sometimes we get permission quickly, sometimes we don’t.”Earlier this week, a 48-year-old man, Paul Mu’awwad, went into cardiac arrest and died before he could get treatment. “We didn’t get permission to take him for emergency care,” Shoufani said, adding that Mu’awwad had left behind a wife and six children. “If we had been able to reach a hospital, he might have lived.

”Over the past month, residents in Debel, Rmeich, and nearby Ein Ebl have relied largely on aid convoys from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which in the past have been accompanied by the Lebanese army.

“Now that the army has left, we don’t know what will happen,” Shoufani said.UNIFIL troops have also limited their movement after Israeli airstrikes killed three Indonesian peacekeepers in southern Lebanon over a 24 hour period last week. Residents say this has further reduced their options.

“All we ask is for a way to move the injured or reach medical care,” Louqa said. “A mechanism to respond when we call. God will take care of the rest.”Al-Rai described the difficulty and humiliation of displacement in a state with overburdened shelters and skyrocketing rents. More than anything, he worried that if he abandoned his home, it would be destroyed by Israeli occupation forces. He, like the others in his village, was determined to stay put.

“These are our homes, our livelihoods, our villages, the homes of our parents and grandparents,” he said. “These are not places that can be left behind.” Drop Site

Features

Happy Parents: Premature Babies Returned to Gaza

CrossFireArabia
April 2, 2026

“I am meeting my daughter for the first time. It’s as if today is the day of her birth. I can’t describe my feelings.”

By Abdel Qader Sabbah, Jawa Ahmad, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous

KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA—Ahmed Al-Harsh waited outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Monday to meet his son, a toddler and the only other survivor of his entire family.

“I’m waiting for my son Mahmoud. I haven’t seen him in two and a half years except once, before he was transferred to Egypt. I’ve been waiting for two and a half years,” Al-Harsh, 31, told Drop Site News.

Mahmoud is one of 28 Palestinian infants who were evacuated to Egypt as premature babies in November 2023 from the neonatal intensive care unit in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, as the Israeli military laid siege to the medical complex and raided it. Mahmoud and seven other children were returned to Gaza on Monday to be reunited with their families, or what was left of them.

On October 14, 2023, one week into Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, the Israeli military bombed the Al-Harsh’s family home in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Al-Harsh’s entire family was killed in the attack—his four-year-old daughter, his father, mother, brother, sisters-in-law, nephews, and nieces. Al-Harsh initially thought his wife, who was eight months pregnant at the time, had also been killed. He only later learned that she had been gravely injured and had given birth to their son, Mahmoud, in hospital before succumbing to her injuries.

(Left) Ahmed Al-Harsh outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as he waits for his son, Mahmoud, to arrive after 2.5 years in Egypt. (Right) Ahmed Al-Harsh holds up a photo of his son Mahmoud on his phone. March 30, 2026. Screenshots of video provided by Abdel Qader Sabbah.

Al-Harsh was able to see Mahmoud only once before he was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit in Al-Shifa’s hospital for care. He had been staying in Beit Lahia, unable to move amid the escalating Israeli assault. In November, Israel laid siege to Al-Shifa hospital, surrounding the medical complex and cutting it off from the rest of Gaza City before raiding it on November 15. Doctors inside scrambled to keep their patients alive, including the nearly 40 premature babies in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, Mahmoud among them. There was no electricity and incubators were failing. The World Health Organization, which was able to coordinate a one-hour visit to Al-Shifa at the time, described the hospital as a “death zone.”

After much negotiation, 31 premature babies were evacuated from Al-Shifa on November 19 and taken to Rafah. UNICEF said the conditions of the babies had been “rapidly deteriorating” inside the besieged hospital. Five died before they could be evacuated. The next day, 28 of the babies were transported across the border to Egypt for treatment. None were accompanied by family members.

For the past two and a half years, Al-Harsh has seen his son only in photos or videos sent to him from Egypt—first as an infant, then a toddler. “The feeling is indescribable. What can I tell you about this feeling?” he said. “These two years felt like forty, even more—a lifetime. During this time, I was a body without a soul. I couldn’t work or do anything.”

Video of the convoy arriving at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis bringing eight children who were evacuated from Gaza to Egypt in November 2023. March 30, 2026. Video provided by Abdel Qader Sabbah.

By early afternoon on Monday, the convoy from Egypt finally arrived. A Red Crescent ambulance and UN vehicles escorted a large bus carrying the children. Families crowded around the doors as they pulled up outside Nasser Hospital. The children were passed into the waiting arms of family members, most of them meeting for the first time, in scenes of joy. Al-Harsh appeared overwhelmed with emotion as he held Mahmoud, chubby, bespectacled and crying, in his arms. When Mahmoud grabbed a bottle of water and drank thirstily, Al-Harsh broke down and wept.

“Every human being needs the love of a mother and father. I am 31, I lost my mother and father, and I’m still suffering,” Al-Harsh said. “This boy—where do I find him a mother? Where do I find him his mother? When he grows up and asks about his mother, what do I tell him?”

At least four of the babies who were evacuated to Egypt died while there, Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, the director of the pediatric department at Nasser Hospital, told Drop Site. He added that the children who returned to Gaza, while healthy, would require additional medical and psychiatric evaluation.

Gaza’s health care system has been systematically destroyed by the Israeli military since October 2023. Every single hospital was attacked and 25 were completely shut down while 13 remain partially functioning, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Despite a “ceasefire” that went into effect in October, Israel has continued near daily attacks in Gaza, killing over 700 Palestinians since then. Israel has also continued to severely restrict the amount of humanitarian aid, fuel, medicine and other essentials, allowing in an average of only 200 trucks daily instead of the 600 agreed upon in the deal.

At the onset of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran on February 28, Israel reinforced a total siege on Gaza, citing “security concerns.” The Kerem Shalom crossing was partially reopened three days later. The Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt—which had only opened in early February for medical evacuations and for Palestinians returning to Gaza—was also closed at the onset of the Iran war and only reopened on March 18. Roughly 20,000 people are on waiting lists for medical evacuation abroad, 4,000 of them children, according to the Health Ministry.

The Gaza Health Ministry this week warned of a severe shortage of generator fuel that threatened hospital operations. The Ministry said that remaining generators are “worn out and prone to repeated breakdowns,” placing critical departments such as intensive care, surgery, neonatal units, and dialysis at risk of shutting down. Israeli forces have allowed the entry of only 1,240 fuel trucks out of the 8,350 that were supposed to enter over the 167 days since the ceasefire agreement took effect—a compliance rate of just 14.8%—according to the latest statistics from officials in Gaza shared with mediators and obtained by Drop Site. The Health Ministry warned that 90 generators are already out of service, while 11 are running on limited supplies. All hospitals in Gaza remain fully dependent on emergency back-up generators, according to OCHA.

Regardless of the continued Israeli siege and daily military assaults, the families who were finally reunited with their children in Gaza on Monday after nearly two and a half years of separation, described the moment as nothing short of miraculous.

Sundus Al-Kurd was among them. She was badly wounded in an Israeli airstrike on her family home in Beit Lahia on October 22, 2023. Her daughter Habibat Al-Rahman was killed in the attack. Eight months pregnant, Al-Kurd was rushed to hospital where doctors operated on her to save her life and conducted an emergency delivery to save her unborn daughter, Bissan.

“On the day I gave birth to my daughter, I lost her only sister,” Al Kurd said.

“When I woke up, I asked, ‘Where is my daughter?’ They told me, ‘Your daughter is fine and doing well,’” she added. “They told me she was in an incubator and that due to my health condition I wouldn’t be able to care for her.”

Al-Kurd continued to recover from her injuries and was unable to see her daughter before the Israeli military attacked Al-Shifa in November 2023.

“I was evacuated from the hospital with difficulty and I asked to take my daughter with me, but they said I wouldn’t be able to care for her due to my medical condition,” she said.

Having lost her other daughter, parents, and two siblings during the war, Al-Kurd said she could not bear the thought of losing Bissan, whom she described as “a gift and compensation from God.” Al-Kurd did not know what had happened to her daughter until much later when she found out she had been among the 28 premature babies evacuated to Egypt.

Sundus Al-Kurd holds up a traditional Palestinian dress she brought for her daughter Bissan, who returned to Gaza after being evacuated to Egypt 2.5 years ago for medical treatment. Khan Younis. March 30, 2026. Screenshot of video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.

“Today, after two and a half years, God willing, we will be reunited with our daughter,” Al-Kurd said. She brought a traditional Palestinian dress for Bissan to wear. When her daughter finally arrived in the convoy to Nasser hospital, Al-Kurd held her tightly before dressing her in the white and red dress as relatives took turns embracing her.

“I am meeting my daughter for the first time,” she said. “It’s as if today is the day of her birth. I can’t describe my feelings.” Drop Site

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Starvation Centers, Death Traps

Abdul Rahman B., one of the survivors

CrossFireArabia

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Israel Ethnically Cleanses South Lebanon

Happy Parents: Premature Babies Returned to Gaza

“I am meeting my daughter for the first time. It’s as if today is the day of her birth. I can’t describe my feelings.”

Video of the convoy arriving at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis bringing eight children who were evacuated from Gaza to Egypt in November 2023. March 30, 2026. Video provided by Abdel Qader Sabbah.

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