A harrowing new report from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), titled "This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing," has exposed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) food distribution sites as deadly mechanisms of violence and dehumanization.

The report, based on MSF medical data, patient testimonies, and first-hand accounts from two MSF clinics in Gaza, reveals a pattern of targeted and indiscriminate violence by Israeli forces and private American contractors against starving Palestinians desperately seeking food.

Between June 7 and July 24, 2025, MSF’s Al-Mawasi and Al-Attar clinics in southern Gaza treated 1,380 casualties, including 28 fatalities, from violence at GHF-run distribution sites. Among the victims were 71 children with gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under 15 years old. The report details horrific cases, including a 12-year-old boy shot through the abdomen and an eight-year-old girl with a bullet wound to her chest. “Children shot in the chest while reaching for food. Entire crowds gunned down at distribution points,” said MSF General Director Raquel Ayora. “In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.”

The GHF, a joint Israeli-U.S. initiative, was introduced in May 2025 to replace the UN-led humanitarian aid system, which Israel dismantled with baseless claims of aid diversion. Operating under full Israeli military control and "secured" by American armed contractors, the four GHF distribution sites have become what MSF calls a “laboratory of cruelty.” The report documents precise gunshot wounds—11% to the head and neck, 19% to the chest, abdomen, and back—indicating intentional targeting rather than random fire. Mohammed Riad Tabasi, a patient at Al-Mawasi clinic, recounted, “I’ve been injured maybe 10 times. I saw about 20 corpses around me. All of them shot in the head, in the stomach.”

The GHF sites institutionalize desperation, forcing starved families to send teenage boys into lethal environments to secure food. Those who manage to obtain rations face violent looting by others driven to desperation, with MSF introducing the term “BBO” (Beaten By Others) to describe patients injured in crowd crushes or robbed of supplies. A five-year-old boy suffered severe head injuries, and a woman died of asphyxiation in a stampede. On August 1, 15-year-old Mahmoud Jamal Al-Attar was shot in the chest and killed at the Al-Shakoush GHF site, even as a U.S. special envoy visited the area.

MSF has called for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme, the restoration of UN-coordinated aid delivery, and an end to financial and political support for GHF from governments, particularly the United States, and private donors. “These sites are death traps,” said Ayora, accusing the GHF of being a deliberate extension of Israel’s genocidal campaign, which began with a full siege on Gaza on March 2, 2025. Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, condemned the global inaction, stating, “There is no other way to describe the murder of children as anything but intentional.”

The report underscores the urgent need for international intervention to halt the violence and restore dignified, safe aid delivery to Gaza’s starving population, who continue to face dehumanization and death under the guise of humanitarian aid. (ILKHA)