GHF

An American paediatrician who volunteered in the Gaza Strip says the injuries inflicted on Palestinian aid seekers at sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) suggest that Israeli forces there shot the men and boys deliberately, by targeting and maiming specific body parts on specific days.

Ahmed Yousaf made the comments to Al Jazeera from the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Tuesday, hours after returning from Gaza, where he had spent two and a half weeks working at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir el-Balah and al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

The doctor said he witnessed “mass casualty incidents” from Israeli shootings at the food distribution points run by the United States-backed GHF on an almost daily basis.

The boys and young men came in with very specific injuries, “almost like a daily pattern”, he said.

“Meaning on a given day, say Monday, we’d get 40,60 patients coming in at a given time, and they would all be shot in the legs, or in the pelvic area, or the groin on a given day, just kind of a similar pattern. And the next day, we would see upper body, chest, thoracic pattern, and then there were days we saw only head wounds, upper neck bullet wounds. And what it felt like, at least for me, the position that I went with, was that somebody behind the gun that day was going to choose the way they were either going to maim or decide to kill people,” he said.

“It was age indiscriminate.”

Yousaf’s comments are the latest by medical staff in Gaza that accuse Israeli forces and US contractors of targeted and indiscriminate violence at the GHF sites.

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said last week that the GHF-run food distributions in famine-stricken Gaza have become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation“, while Human Rights Watch said the shootings amount to serious violations of international law and war crimes.

On Tuesday alone, at least 19 aid seekers were killed at GHF sites in Gaza, while many more were wounded, according to medics and witnesses.

At least 1,838 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid, and another 13,409 have been wounded since the GHF began its operations in late May, official figures show.

Israel and the GHF deny the killings.

‘All of Gaza is a death trap’

Yousaf, the US paediatrician, said the victims at the sites were mainly boys and young men, as they are often the ones taking the risk to try to get food for their families, “given the dynamic of the risk associated with trying to carry a 5-pound [2.3kg] bag of flour, maybe kilometres, sometimes”.

“The people would tell us they were sometimes at the site, or around the area, or they were trying to leave… and they were shot indiscriminately; it was like they were being sprayed. It seemed quite obvious to them and to us, from a pattern-recognition perspective, in terms of who came to the ER [emergency room], that on a given day, whoever was making the decision behind the trigger was choosing a very specific pattern of fire,” he said.

The doctor went on to describe all of Gaza as a “death trap”.

“It is a cage in which people are being marked for death. It almost feels like there is a quota for the number of people that need to be killed on a given day,” Yousaf said.

On the days that Palestinians stayed away from the GHF sites, because Israel allowed in more aid trucks, there would be more intense air attacks, he said.

“The last four days that we were there, when there was a bit more aid access via food trucks that were allowed in, the risk profile changed and them going to the food distribution sites wasn’t nearly worth the risk because there was some food elsewhere, we saw a significant uptick in bomb blasts on the streets, homes, vehicles. So the pattern of the MCIs – the mass casualty incidents – changed from bullet wounds, mostly boys and young men, to just indiscriminate bombings. We saw women and children, elderly, on the days the bombs come in,” he told Al Jazeera.

The doctor described the Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a “genocide”.

One clear aspect of this, he said, was Israel’s refusal to let him and his colleagues take in medical supplies or baby formula.

“When we were screened by the [Israeli military] at the border, the vast majority of us had things confiscated from our bags. Things like food and multivitamins and antibiotics and medical supplies, like stethoscopes, everything you can imagine, that we wished we could have to treat the people on the ground in Gaza,” he said.

“And this resulted in a situation in which, when those patients came in, in different stages of dying, screaming in pain for their mothers… we knew that in any other environment, we could have done something for them, but in the environment of Gaza, in the death trap that is Gaza completely, we were unable to give them the aid that they deserve, to provide the human dignity and humanity that they deserve.”

‘People are being shot like animals.’ Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is calling for Gaza’s GHF aid sites to be shut down after its report found Israeli troops are deliberately killing Palestinians trying to access food, in what it describes as ‘orchestrated killings’.

Video shows gunfire hitting the ground near a group of Palestinians seeking aid in the vicinity of a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation food distribution site in Gaza. More than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating in May 2025.

“I call that a war crime.” Anthony Aguilar told Al Jazeera about what he says were deadly and unprofessional practices he witnessed firsthand at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution sites in Gaza.

A former security guard who worked at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation ‘aid distribution sites’ described to Israeli media abuses he witnessed firsthand, including the potentially lethal use of pepper spray and tear gas.

Men, women and children seen running in all directions away from Israeli soldiers attacking the desperate aid seekers.

Israeli military personnel have pepper-sprayed desperate and starving Palestinian aid seekers at one of the distribution points of the controversial aid agency GHF in Gaza, a video shows.

In the 20-second video verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad, Israeli troops were seen scattering a crowd with pepper spray at Shakoush in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.

The mobile phone video, recorded on July 10 and released on social media late on Saturday, shows three armed soldiers using the pepper spray against the Palestinians at the Israeli and United States-backed GHF aid point.

The GHF security personnel fired pepper spray at Palestinians who went to receive aid in Al Shakoush area in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. 10/7/2025 pic.twitter.com/uZbhyoMgdM

— Eye on Palestine (@EyeonPalestine) July 19, 2025

Men, women and children could be seen running in all directions away from the soldiers – some covering their mouths with their clothes, others frantically rushing to leave the scene with bags of flour hoisted on their backs.

Since the GHF started operating in Gaza in late May, at least 891 people have been killed while trying to get food, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Saturday.

A July 15 report by the United Nations found that at least 674 of those people were killed “in the vicinity of GHF sites”.

The highly criticised aid operation has effectively sidelined Gaza’s vast UN-led aid delivery network after Israel eased a more than two-month total blockade on the enclave.

The video of Palestinians being pepper-sprayed came as Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza saw at least 54 more Palestinians killed on Sunday, 51 of them aid seekers, until 10:30 GMT on Sunday.

On Saturday, 116 Palestinians were killed across the enclave, including at least 38 aid seekers.

Mahmoud Mokeimar, a Palestinian in Gaza, said he was walking with a crowd of people, mostly young men, towards the GHF hub when Israeli troops fired warning shots and soon opened fire.

“The occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately,” he told The Associated Press news agency.

Mokeimar said he saw at least three motionless bodies on the ground and many wounded people fleeing.

“Unless Israel allows more food into Gaza, Palestinians have no choice but to risk their lives just for something to eat,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in Gaza.

“Parents go to the GHF distribution sites to risk getting killed or leave their children starving. There is no option in the market. Everything is very expensive.”

Meanwhile, Palestinians, including infants and toddlers, continue to die from starvation across Gaza.

Four-year-old Razan Abu Zaher died of complications from malnutrition and hunger, a source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza City told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

On Saturday, the director of al-Shifa Hospital said two Palestinians had died of starvation, including a 35-day-old infant.

On Friday, the Health Ministry said starving Palestinians are arriving in hospital emergency departments across Gaza in “unprecedented numbers”, as Israel continues to severely restrict access to food in Gaza and shoot people seeking aid.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 58,765 people and wounded 140,485 others. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says tear gas was fired on Wednesday at crowds of Palestinians at aid facility in Khan Younis.

At least 21 Palestinians have been killed in the latest carnage at the GHF aid distribution centre in southern Gaza, with most of the victims reported to have died in a stampede.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health has disputed the allegation from the controversial United States- and Israel-backed organisation that armed agitators were responsible for the incident on Wednesday morning at the site in Khan Younis.

In an earlier statement, the GHF had said 19 victims were trampled and another was stabbed “amid a chaotic and dangerous surge”.

Without providing any evidence, it said the stampede had been provoked by “elements within the crowd – armed and affiliated with Hamas”.

The statement also claimed that GHF staff saw multiple weapons in the crowd and that one of its US contractors was threatened with a gun.

However, Palestinian authorities and witnesses have vehemently contested the GHF’s version of events.

Gaza’s Health Ministry released a statement saying 21 Palestinians had been killed at the GHF site on Wednesday. It noted that 15 of the victims died as a result of a stampede and suffocation after tear gas was fired at crowds of aid seekers.

“️For the first time, deaths have been recorded due to suffocation and the intense stampede of citizens at aid distribution centres,” the ministry added.

Speaking from Gaza City on Wednesday, Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud said a witness had confirmed that tear gas was fired on the crowd, “causing mayhem and chaos”, which led to a stampede.

Meanwhile, a medical source at Nasser Hospital told the AFP news agency that the desperate and starving victims had been trying to receive food, but the main gate to the distribution centre had been closed.

“The Israeli occupation forces and the centre’s private security personnel opened fire on them, resulting in a large number of deaths and injuries,” they said.

Since the GHF started operating in the enclave in late May, at least 875 people have been killed trying to get food, according to the United Nations, which said on Tuesday that 674 of these deaths had occurred “in the vicinity of GHF sites”.

Speaking last week, UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said most of the casualties had suffered “gunshot injuries”.

Both the Israeli army and GHF contractors have been accused of carrying out the killings.

The UN has described the GHF sites as “death traps”, calling them “inherently unsafe” and a breach of humanitarian impartiality standards.

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, said on Wednesday that the GHF was guilty of gross mismanagement.

“People who flock in their thousands (to GHF sites) are hungry and exhausted, and they get squeezed into narrow places, amid shortages of aid and the absence of organisation and discipline by the GHF,” he said.

The latest deaths near aid distribution centres came as an Israeli attack on a camp of displaced people in al-Mawasi killed nine people.

In total, at least 43 Palestinians, including 21 people who were seeking aid, have been killed since dawn on Wednesday, according to medical sources.

A top US Department of State official waived nine mandatory counterterrorism and anti-fraud safeguards to rush a $30m award last month to a controversial Gaza aid group backed by the Trump administration and Israel, the Reuters news agency reported, citing an internal memorandum.

Jeremy Lewin, a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) associate, signed off on the award despite an assessment in the memorandum that the GHF funding plan failed to meet required “minimum technical or budgetary standards”.

The June 24 action memorandum to Lewin was sent by Kenneth Jackson, also a former DOGE operative who serves as an acting deputy US Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator. The pair has overseen the agency’s dismantling and the merger of its functions into the State Department.

Lewin also overrode 58 objections that USAID staff experts wanted GHF to resolve in its application before the funds were approved, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

Lewin, who runs the State Department’s foreign aid programme, cleared the funds only five days after GHF filed its proposal on June 19, according to the June 24 “action memorandum” bearing his signature.

“Strong Admin support for this one,” Lewin wrote to USAID leaders in a June 25 email, Reuters reported, that urged disbursement of the funds by the agency “ASAP”.

Lewin and Jackson have not issued comments on the matter.

The documents underline the priority the Trump administration has given GHF despite the group’s lack of experience and the killing of hundreds of Palestinians near its Gaza aid distribution hubs.

GHF, which closely coordinates with the Israeli military, has acknowledged reports of violence, but claims they occurred beyond its operations area.

Lewin noted in the email that he had discussed the funds with aides to Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s negotiator on Gaza, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s office.

He acknowledged that authorising the funds would be controversial, writing, “I’m taking the bullet on this one.”

‘Inhumane and deadly’

There was no comment from the White House.

Reuters said Witkoff and Rubio did not reply to a question about whether they were aware of and supported the decision to waive the safeguards.

The State Department told Reuters that the $30m was approved under a legal provision allowing USAID to expedite awards in response to “emergency situations” to “meet humanitarian needs as expeditiously as possible”.

“The GHF award remains subject to rigorous oversight, including of GHF’s operations and finances,” the statement said. “As part of the award, GHF was subject to new control and reporting requirements”.

A GHF spokesperson told Reuters, “Our model is specifically designed to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. Every dollar we receive is safeguarded to ensure all resources — which will eventually include American taxpayer funds — reach the people of Gaza.” The spokesperson added that such requests for clarification from the US government about fund applications were routine.

Speaking about the nine conditions that were waived, the spokesperson said, “We are addressing each question as per regulations and normal procedure and will continue to do so as required.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry has said at least 743 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,891 others injured while seeking assistance at GHF aid sites.

The GHF, which began operating in the bombarded Palestinian enclave in late May, has drawn widespread criticism amid multiple reports that its contractors, as well as Israeli forces, have opened fire on aid seekers.

Leading humanitarian and human rights groups have demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, which they accused of “forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties”.

Amnesty International has described the group’s operations as an “inhumane and deadly militarised scheme”, while the UN insists that the model is violating humanitarian principles.

Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza, where a famine looms as Israel maintains a crippling blockade, have no choice but to seek aid from the GHF despite the risks involved.

Two babies died of starvation in Gaza due to Israel’s continuing blockade of vital aid. The deaths come as the US approved $30 million in funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food from its aid centres.

More than 100 Palestinians have been killed trying to get aid at distribution centres run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation over the past eight days. This is a timeline of the key events that led to the UN labelling it a ‘death trap’.

Israeli military warns access roads to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) aid distribution sites are now considered ‘combat zones’.

The United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) will suspend aid distribution in the war-torn territory on Wednesday, a day after Israeli forces again opened fire on Palestinian aid seekers near a GHF distribution site, killing at least 27 and injuring more than 100.

Israel’s military also said that approach roads to the aid distribution centres will be “considered combat zones” on Wednesday, and warned that people in Gaza should heed the GHF announcement to stay away.

“We confirm that travel is prohibited tomorrow on roads leading to the distribution centers … and entry to the distribution centers is strictly forbidden,” an Israeli military spokesperson said.

In a post on social media, GHF said the temporary suspension was necessary to allow for “renovation, reorganisation and efficiency improvement work”.

“Due to the ongoing updates, entry to the distribution centre areas is slowly prohibited! Please do not go to the site and follow general instructions. Operations will resume on Thursday. Please continue to follow updates,” the group said.

The temporary suspension of aid comes as more than 100 Palestinian people seeking aid have been reported killed by Israeli forces in the vicinity of GHF distribution centres since the organisation started operating in the enclave on May 27.

The killing of people desperately seeking food supplies has triggered mounting international outrage with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanding an independent inquiry into the deaths and for “perpetrators to be held accountable”.

“It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” Guterres said.

The Israeli military has admitted it shot at aid seekers on Tuesday, but claimed that they opened fire when “suspects” deviated from a stipulated route as a crowd of Palestinians was making its way to the GHF distribution site in Gaza.

Israel’s military said it is looking into the incident and the reports of casualties.

On Tuesday, GHF named its new executive chairman as US evangelical Christian leader Reverend Dr Johnnie Moore.

Moore, who was an evangelical adviser to the White House during the first term of United States President Donald Trump, said in a statement that GHF was “demonstrating that it is possible to move vast quantities of food to people who need it most — safely, efficiently, and effectively”.

The UN and aid agencies have refused to work with the GHF, accusing the group of lacking neutrality and of being part of Israel’s militarisation of aid in Gaza. Israel has also been accused of “weaponising” hunger in Gaza, which has been brought about by a months-long Israeli blockade on food, medicine, water and other basic essentials entering the war-torn territory.

Moore’s appointment is likely to add to concerns regarding GHF’s operations in Gaza, given his support for the controversial proposal Trump floated in February for the US to take over Gaza, remove the Palestinian population, and focus on real estate development in the territory.

After Trump proposed the idea, Moore posted video of Trump’s remarks on X and wrote: “The USA will take full responsibility for future of Gaza, giving everyone hope & a future.”

Responding on social media to UN chief Guterres’s outrage following the killing of aid seekers in Gaza on Sunday, Moore said: “Mr Secretary-General, it was a lie… spread by terrorists & you’re still spreading it.

The GHF’s founding executive director, former US marine Jake Wood, resigned from his position before the Gaza operation began, questioning the organisation’s “impartiality” and “independence”.

Critics have accused GHF, which has not revealed where its funds come from, of facilitating the Israeli military’s goal of depopulating northern Gaza as it has concentrated aid distribution in the southern part of the territory, forcing thousands of desperate people to make the perilous journey to its locations to receive assistance.

Israeli forces have killed at least 27 Palestinians and injured 90 more as they opened fire close to an aid distribution site in Rafah, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

The latest killings came early on Tuesday at the Flag Roundabout, near an aid hub operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

It was the third such incident around the Rafah hub in as many days. Gaza’s authorities report that more than 100 aid seekers have been killed since the United States- and Israel-backed GHF started operating in the enclave on May 27, with reports of violence, looting and chaos rife.

The Israeli military said it had fired shots as “a number of suspects” deviated from the regulated routes, on which a crowd was making its way to the GHF distribution complex.

The “suspects” were about 500 metres (approximately 550 yards) from the site, the military said in a statement on Telegram, adding that it was looking into reports of casualties.

The death toll was confirmed by Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.

A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hisham Mhanna, said 184 wounded people had been taken to its field hospital in Rafah, 19 of whom were found dead on arrival, and eight others died later of their wounds.

Video verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency showed the arrival of dozens of injured people at the hospital.

Lured

Gaza’s Government Media Office accused Israel of “a horrific, intentionally repeated crime”, saying it has been luring starving Palestinians to the GHF centres – controversially opened following an 11-week total blockade to take over most aid distribution from the United Nations and other aid agencies – and then opening fire.

It said Tuesday’s death toll brought the number of aid seekers killed at aid sites in the Rafah governorate and the so-called Netzarim Corridor since GHF launched operations to 102, with 490 others injured.

The United Nations on Monday demanded an independent investigation into the repeated mass shootings of aid seekers in Gaza.

“It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” said Secretary General Antonio Guterres. “I call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”

“We heard from witnesses that there was chaos,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting about Tuesday’s killings from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. “The Israeli forces just opened fire randomly, shooting Palestinians … using quadcopters and live ammunition.”

Health Ministry officials and doctors said most of the wounded have been hit in their chest and head, she added.

The bloodshed, she continued, had unfolded in the same way as on the previous two days, amid ongoing chaos around the aid distribution centres.

“There’s no process. There’s no system,” she said. “You just need to run first to be able to get the food.”

‘Either way, we will die’

Rasha al-Nahal told The Associated Press news agency that “there was gunfire from all directions”, and that she saw more than a dozen people dead and several wounded on the road.

When she finally made it to the distribution hub, there was no aid, al-Nahal said, adding that Israeli troops “fired at us as we were returning”.

Another witness, Neima al-Aaraj, from Khan Younis, described the shooting as “indiscriminate”.

“I won’t return,” she said. “Either way, we will die.”

The Israeli military, in its statement on Telegram, said troops had fired warning shots as people deviated from “designated access routes” and “after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced toward the troops”.

However, it denied firing on civilians or blocking them from accessing aid.

This account echoes statements around similar incidents on Sunday, when 31 aid seekers were reportedly killed, and on Monday, when three more were killed.