Our Reporter Got Into Gaza. He Witnessed a Famine of Israel’s Making.

It was Tuesday June when Khalil heard from neighbors that an aid truck had arrived a insufficient kilometers from where he lived in Deir al Balah Gaza By then he had already lost about pounds since the war began in With his brothers and a friend Khalil set off on foot On the walk over the -year-old could hear intermittent shelling but the promise of food he felt was worth the hazard Hunger has become stronger than fear announced Khalil who agreed to speak on the condition that his last name not be published When they arrived around a m a huge crowd was gathering at the aid point in Netzarim People start heading there before sunrise because the lines get impossibly long Khalil declared Thousands had clearly gotten the same tip The sheer amount of desperate hungry people was overwhelming Khalil disclosed I hadn t eaten properly in days I was dizzy and weak The distribution site was run by a new aid provider operational in Gaza for only a scarce weeks Khalil promptly noticed military presence We saw the Israeli soldiers in full military uniform standing next to their armored vehicles We arrived knowing the place was dangerous But there was no clash no threat to them Khalil stated The Israeli Coordination of Ruling body Sessions in the Territories bureau did not respond to written requests for comment for this article I got closer to death that day than a piece of bread He stood in line with hundreds of others There were children women and elderly men Particular were barefoot certain had been waiting since the night before he recalled As his group inched closer to the point where they hoped they would be able to grab a parcel of items gunshots rang out Khalil ran for his life They began shooting directly at unarmed civilians he revealed The bullets were chasing us as if we were targets on a shooting range and not just hungry people We scattered under a hail of bullets I got closer to death that day than a piece of bread Khalil survived that quest for food alive to starve another day instead But at least Palestinians did not and more were wounded according to the Palestinian Fitness Ministry Since Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas in mid-March more than Palestinians have been killed while seeking food Reporting from inside Gaza over the last limited months The Intercept observed a famine that is manufactured and an aid distribution system seemingly designed to cause more suffering and death Amid the war Israel has rendered Gaza inaccessible to the foreign press American journalist Afeef Nessouli accessed the Strip by volunteering as an aid worker for a physiological nonprofit and reporting in his off-hours Usually during war the distribution of biological care and food to a besieged population would not be administered by any party waging war against it much less by an illegally occupying military And in majority situations aid operations would closely involve established organizations already proceeding in the area But that s not the development in Gaza Israel has effectively banned the biggest and longest-running aid group in the region the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East or UNRWA And by gutting the United States Agency for International Progress or USAID a critical funding carriage for aid groups including UNRWA U S President Donald Trump has strangled international aid in Gaza Israel and the U S have instead rolled out a new scheme centered around a fledgling U S -based nonprofit that operates alongside the same Israeli military responsible for killing more than journalists healthcare care workers and Palestinian children in the last two years Related The Rising Death Toll of the U S Israel Aid Distribution Plan in Gaza With a limited small exceptions all aid reaching Gaza since May has moved through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which was established in Delaware in February The organization has received tens of millions from the U S to distribute aid in Gaza and reportedly a few million from an unnamed country GHF did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story Since it started operations the number of locations in Gaza where residents could receive aid has plummeted from around to four sites Sometimes only one hub is genuinely operating explained Hanya Aljamal the senior project coordinator at the aid group Action for Humanity who is based in Deir al Balah Sometimes Aljamal explained the sites are closed for measure reasons other times for maintenance Khalil corroborates this I went a inadequate days ago and it wasn t open He says now he checks the GHF s Facebook page which informs people of the schedule Aljamal says she believes they operate semi-daily for only two hours a day Arriving in Gaza in late March just as Israel broke the ceasefire The Intercept witnessed firsthand what happened to Gaza s the majority vulnerable after the U S defunded USAID and UNRWA and turned those agencies work over to the Israeli military and GHF Famine has been a dilemma in Gaza since the early days of the war But when Israel and Hamas communicated a ceasefire on January access to goods became easier Meat vegetables and chicken and even snacks were reachable albeit at a slightly expensive price Aljamal mentioned But we had options When the holy month of Ramadan began on February it wasn t hard to find a simple meal of rice or lentils for dinner or labneh and za atar for suhoor before fasting for the day But on March Israel cut off food imports to Gaza when it imposed a blockade On March Israel shattered the ceasefire when it restarted its campaign of airstrikes Even after Eid which marked the end of the Holy Month one meal a day remained standard practice if not a luxury At the time area kitchens like Shabab Gaza were running low on food But they were still delivering what they could to areas the Israeli military referred to as red zones swaths of land Israel has evacuated and banned aid from entering such as Khan Yunis By spring percent of Gaza was considered a red zone Shabab Gaza the youth of Gaza in Arabic was making meals of rice so people could break their fast at sundown Inside a makeshift kitchen housed in a tent the men fasting themselves worked in groups to cook the rice in vats They packaged it fast to deliver to the surrounding area but neighbors also established up with pots and pans ready to grab the food for their families or ready to eat themselves The Shabab Gaza public kitchen in Al Qarara Khan Yunis Gaza seen on June Photo Afeef Nessouli There were about operational region kitchens before the crossings closed in early March Just two months later dozens had ceased operating The blockade halted the entry of vital goods for months resulting in scarcity and price hikes It was made worse by the resumption of fighting between Israel and Hamas which restricted access to domestic produce because of new evacuation orders from the north Rafah and areas in Khan Yunis where new crops were cultivated Aljamal disclosed At the domain produce was fresh but limited Tomatoes cucumbers peppers onions and sometimes potatoes were for sale grown on the shards of Gazan farmland remaining The U N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs or OCHA announced that Israel has destroyed percent of Gaza s agricultural cropland and restricted access to specific of what remains rendering less than percent of cropland available for cultivation It used to be that three kilos of these onions were just an older woman declared in her makeshift kitchen in eastern Khan Yunis By April an onion cost a dollar apiece Flour became incredibly expensive with a single bag selling for hundreds of dollars Because nearly every bank branch and ATM remain inoperable in Gaza people cannot find cash to pay for even a single bag of flour They are reliant on an unregulated configuration of cash brokers to get money for daily life with commissions hovering around percent Even domesticated chickens have been laying fewer eggs than usual one international aid worker announced Food isn t available for them neither are supplements or animal feed that provide stuff like calcium which is essential to egg production the worker announced And like humans chickens also experience stress The Israeli military s bombs and quadcopters are loud As of July OCHA reports that percent of the population in Gaza was projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity That includes million people facing exigency levels of food insecurity and facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity I have lost nearly kilos announced Basel one of the men at Shabab Gaza s society kitchen He exhibited pictures of himself from back when he used to weigh pounds Basel is bald with blue eyes with a -foot -inch frame Now pounds he looks thin his face gaunt Several men displayed pictures of this kind of transformation They described the indignity of going hungry every day and how weakened they feel Look at what they are doing to us We are so tired Basel explained By God it has been almost two years really we are so hungry he disclosed Basel on July on the left and on July on the right Photo Courtesy of Basel Lehya Nessouli the Intercept reporter volunteered in Gaza with Glia a biological nonprofit from late March to early June With other healthcare workers he ate once per day usually rice or lentils Sometimes there would be tomatoes or peppers occasionally canned tuna During that time he lost pounds People begging for food at the field rushing international aid workers cars on the seaside road or even knocking on doors looking for flour became commonplace Now we are reduced to one meal per day Aljamal the aid worker explained which usually consists of a variation of the same thing lentils Lentils can take the form of soup or falafel be steamed or cooked into a gravy But sometimes Aljamal explained the sole meal of the day consists of bread plain bread UNRWA was set up in to provide humanitarian relief to Palestinians displaced by the Arab Israeli War Originally it was intended to provide jobs on population works projects and direct relief It grew to offer mentoring healthcare care and social services to wide swaths of Palestinian society even serving more than million registered Palestinian refugees and their descendants in the diaspora The Palestinian Authority has been a recipient of UNRWA s services and sponsorship as it has governed the West Bank since and Gaza until the U S -monitored voting of in which Hamas gained power At its height UNRWA employed over staff percent of whom were Palestinian Preponderance of UNRWA s funding came from European countries and the United States but this largely disappeared after Israel accused UNRWA employees of participating in the October attacks A U N research cleared most of of the accused UNRWA workers but identified that nine of the people who worked for the organization in Gaza may have participated in the attacks USAID also once provided financial assistance to the Palestinian people for various advancement and humanitarian projects Since the United States has steered more than billion in aid to Palestinians This funding dried up after Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised in March to cut USAID s foreign grants by percent before shuttering it entirely on July Ending USAID a Cold War tool of soft power founded in as an independent executive branch agency responsible for administering foreign aid and economic improvement assistance outside the US has been a signature protocol of Trump s second administration For decades the agency has played a key role in treating HIV AIDS and in providing lifesaving care to LGBTQ people including in Gaza One review estimates the USAID cuts will effect in the deaths of million people by Read our complete coverage Israel s War on Gaza Over the decades the majority international aid to Gaza has been run through either UNRWA or USAID partners though Qatar too has been a key funder providing over billion in reconstruction funds and stipends for poor Palestinians between and Much of the Strip s economic activity has been reliant on aid infrastructure with UNRWA specifically playing a critical role in the distribution of food even before the war began UNRWA has been the backbone that held Gazan society together Aljamal announced As a child I went to UNRWA schools and was offered the best doable instruction available with the smallest of guidance When me or any of my siblings got sick or needed health attention we rushed into subsidized UNRWA clinics that even provided us with the needed meds too When it comes to food lots of refugee families relied on their three-month dry ration distributions which consisted of flour cooking oil sugar rice lentils chickpeas per family member for three months For years this venture helped ensure food safety in the region We often held great pride in the fact that wherever you went and however bad it had gotten you wouldn t possibly sleep without food she stated Related In Gaza Famine Is the Weapon and So Is Aid District kitchens also played a critical role in aid distribution in Gaza Glia s head of mission Moureen Kaki a Palestinian American moved from Texas to Gaza more than a year ago to help she never left She also supporters at Shabab Gaza in Khan Yunis Kaki who switches breezily throughout her day between Palestinian Arabic and English with a slight Texas lilt in her voice notes that when she arrived neighborhood kitchens across Gaza were producing meals a day feeding about people about percent of the Strip s population Back then population kitchens were able to reliably source food via donations and USAID But now it is extremely tough to operate In the modern day society kitchens still exist but their limit has dropped from meals a day to about Kaki says because they exclusively cannot source supplies The current famine she says is the worst I have seen hands down Moureen Kaki speaks to a man at Shabab Gaza locality kitchen on June in Al Qarara Khan Yunis Gaza Photo Afeef Nessouli World Central Kitchen founded by chef Jos Andr s and one of the greater part recognized food distributors in Gaza and whose workers were killed in a Israeli airstrike ceased operations in May after it ran out of supplies it resumed operations in the last few days Smaller mutual aid organizations like the Sameer Project have continued to churn out as countless meals as they can even after their camp coordinator Mosab Ali was killed Shabab Gaza s limit dropped from meals a day to in June and by July had to stop operations because rice became too expensive The group hopes to resume as soon as attainable As long-standing aid providers languish in Gaza Israel and the United States have embraced a new approach the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation According to the New York Times Israeli representatives military leaders and businesspeople began discussing the concept of an Israeli-backed food distribution system in December and had brought a former CIA agent-turned-private protection contractor on board by the summer of The new effort was revealed on May as a U S -led initiative with U S Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee saying it was wholly inaccurate to characterize it as an Israeli plan By June Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the initiative had in fact originated in Israel Unlike prior aid distribution systems GHF planned to use a small number of distribution hubs in southern Gaza that would be secured by private U S -backed contractors with the Israeli military keeping watch at a distance The aid would be prepackaged filled with a hygiene kit physiological supplies and food rations Each meal was budgeted to cost only around each Soon after it launched administrators revealed the GHF system would attempt to screen people for involvement with Hamas by using facial recognition or biometric machinery violating a core tenet of addressing hunger that no political litmus test can be imposed for access to human rights like food and water The United Nations rejected the new U S -backed distribution plan and sayings that it did not meet its long-held principles of impartiality neutrality and independence The U N aid chief declared the new system would force further displacement expose people to harm and restrict aid to one part of Gaza Oxfam and other nongovernmental organizations called for immediate action to end the Israeli distribution scheme In late June Israeli soldiers corroborated what Palestinians had been claiming about the GHF aid distribution sites Commanders explicitly ordered soldiers to shoot unarmed civilians Massacres were a product of soldiers doing what they were advised to do Video obtained by Afeef Nessouli One video shows thousands of people crowded all around at GHF distribution site in Rafah according to Al Jazeera The phone camera pans to the left and the sound of gunshots hitting a mound of earth about meters in front of the crowd is piercing The video shows sand kicking up in a whirl upward from the bullets as people crawl on their knees trying to dodge the gunfire Imagine if Toronto was starving Dorotea Gucciardo hypothesized at a press conference at the Canadian Parliament in June Gucciardo is the director of Glia the NGO Nessouli volunteered with in Gaza and with whom he and reporter Steven Thrasher have also worked to deliver antiretroviral medication into Gaza since reporting on AIDS in the Strip in January In this Canadian analogy Gucciardo explained The U N system would deploy over distribution sites The GHF model Ten In Montreal the U N would open sites while GHF s version Six And in Gaza the UN had a well-maintained system of aid sites she stated GHF has replaced those with only three Glia was founded in with a focus on providing low-cost healthcare supplies using D printing hardware beginning with a stethoscope design Over the years its services have expanded Since the group has rotated doctors nurses and other personnel into Gaza to promotion local wellness care workers Aid is distributed by gunpoint by American mercenaries Glia doctors operating in Gaza s incredibly damaged strength care system have been treating malnourished patients throughout the war Since GHF began operating on May to Palestinians have been killed per day at the aid distribution sites Gucciardo explains They are treating an ever-rising number of malnourished patients injured waiting for food Everybody my healthcare unit treats is skin and bones Gucciardo declared Related Israeli Soldiers Killed at Least People at Food Aid Sites in Gaza This Month Gucciardo called the switch to the GHF campaign an engineered starvation Aid is distributed by gunpoint by American mercenaries It is inhumane degrading dangerous and it violates every principle of humanitarian law she says The AP has communicated that GHF contractors have shot live ammo at aid sites claims that GHF denies GHF has also denied that multiple violent incidents have even occurred near their aid distribution sites regularly blames outside agitators for the incidents it does acknowledge and stated that GHF remains focused on its mission to safely fleetly and effectively feed as a large number of people as attainable every day When GHF s original executive director American veteran and entrepreneur Jake Wood broadcasted he was stepping down after just a couple of months one reason he cited was because it was impossible to fulfill GHF s plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity neutrality impartiality and independence which I will not abandon From the outset they were placed in proceeding red zones especially in southern Gaza in Rafah revealed Majed Jaber a Palestinian volunteer urgency room medical practitioner who has worked at several hospitals in the southern part of Gaza We saw far too numerous headshots to ever call it random At Nasser and the Red Crescent hospitals where I worked during those distributions we regularly received to wounded people in a single day Dozens arrived already dead or died shortly after he explained Every other day the number would spike The injuries were horrific Limbs blown off by high-caliber bullets Vital organs pierced hearts aortas lungs We saw far too a multitude of headshots to ever call it random Tarek Loubani a Canadian medical expert in Gaza and the healthcare director of Glia observed a similar pattern of wounds in those killed or injured at GHF distribution sites At present I saw patients with gunshots to the head gunshots to the neck the gunshots to the head and neck are almost perpetually targeted Usually shot by snipers he explained When there are shots to other parts of the body Loubani explained it s usually from a machine gun being used to shoot on the crowd For its part GHF acknowledges the dangerous proximity of the Israeli military to its distribution centers writing on Facebook Our dear precious residents of Gaza We ask you not to be near our centers between p m and a m for your safety due to the possibility of the IDF conducting military operations in the area newsetter newsletter Amal a trans woman who lives in Gaza City sent The Intercept a picture of her bandaged arm on WhatsApp in early June Amal gave The Intercept a pseudonym for safety Do you see what happened to me Amal stated in her voice note Her voice was trembling and angry but still soft The preceding day I went to the GHF distribution point to pick up certain aid to get a bag of flour she explained I absolutely got a bag after a really hard time I was exhausted And then after all of that thieves stole my bag and stabbed me with a knife Hunger is painful Amal reported She complained of joint pain stomach pain and a lack of concentration I faint and fall explained Amal who stands feet tall and weighs just pounds I do not want anything I only want to eat Despite the Trump administration axing thousands of USAID awards and firing the accompanying officers who managed these funds GHF does not seem to lack for funds Earlier this month Reuters stated that the State Department is considering giving GHF an additional million Zeteo disclosed that GHF requested million dollars from USAID The group s social media accounts regularly publish accusations against international aid groups and journalists GHF has denounced the U N and Oxfam for standing by helplessly while their aid is looted and allege that The Associated Press s Middle East bureau has sadly devolved into a propaganda bus amplifying unverified states omitting critical context and publishing narratives that serve a designated terrorist group Its belligerent posts have a Trumpian quality down to the use of all caps let s go through the history of how we got here in the first place HAMAS IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION WITH AN OPERATIONAL PROPAGANDA ARM and are marked with denial of any problems with their approach Scenes like this prove the GHF model is working People have been comparing it to Squid Contest or Hunger Games On June reports emerged that Israeli tanks had killed over Palestinians as they were waiting for aid trucks in Khan Yunis in the southern part of the Strip On July over Palestinians were killed at a GHF distribution site in southern Gaza The majority of the casualties were disclosed to have died in a stampede Countless Palestinians in Gaza who have limited supplies refuse to go to the new aid sites We don t go to GHF aid points because they re death traps says E S a -year-old restrained to a walker because of complications due to his HIV status I can t fight through the crowds because of my disability plus we all know the whole situation is messy he continues There is no line and there is no distribution method at all they offload everything into a big arena in fact people have been comparing it to Squid Encounter or Hunger Games E S explains It becomes a battle because everyone is desperate for food Related Famine Haunts the People of Gaza Israel Is Trying to Convince You It s Fake The number of people reportedly killed by Israeli gunfire at GHF aid distribution sites continues to climb as the people of Gaza face starvation The Gaza Healthcare Ministry has counted people killed and another wounded at GHF sites since the undertaking was put in place including at least killed by Israeli fire this past weekend A newborn baby died of malnutrition at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Saturday and Palestinian journalists have been posting image after image of people dying of starvation More than countries including the U K France and Canada published a declaration Monday saying that the suffering of civilians has reached new depths and calling for the war in Gaza to end now The Israeli establishment s aid delivery model is dangerous fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity the announcement continued We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians including children seeking to meet their the greater part basic requirements of water and food On Monday morning Israel also began a new military invasion of Deir al Balah where Nessouli was based in June As Israeli tanks moved into the dense area packed with multiple thousands of displaced people an Israeli airstrike destroyed a water desalination plant killing five more people in the blast The post Our Reporter Got Into Gaza He Witnessed a Famine of Israel s Making appeared first on The Intercept