Former US soldier tells BBC Israeli troops fired on civilians seeking aid
Speaking to the BBC in an interview on Friday, Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Aguilar said he had never seen such "brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population".
"I've never witnessed that in all the places I've been deployed to war, until I was in Gaza at the hands of the [Israeli forces] and US contractors," he said.
"Without question, I witnessed war crimes by the Israeli Defense Forces, without a doubt. Using artillery rounds, mortar rounds, firing tank rounds into unarmed civilians is a war crime."
Aguilar, who is a veteran of the US Army's Green Berets, said he saw Israeli troops and US contractors firing live ammunition, artillery, mortar rounds and tank shells at starving, unarmed Palestinians awaiting aid.
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He recalled one incident in which a Merkava tank fired at civilians, destroying a car as it drove away from the aid site.
Aguilar added that he witnessed mortar rounds being launched into crowds "to keep them controlled".
He described those in charge of the GHF initiative as "amateur, inexperienced, and untrained", noting that they had "no idea of how to conduct operations at this magnitude".
'I witnessed war crimes.'
Anthony Aguilar, a former US Green Beret, told the BBC that he witnessed Israeli forces firing artillery shells and mortar rounds into crowds of unarmed, starving Palestinian civilians at aid distribution sites in Gaza pic.twitter.com/Yed5brxJ3M — Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) July 26, 2025
More than 100 humanitarian organisations warned on Wednesday that "mass famine" has been spreading across the Gaza Strip since Israel blocked humanitarian aid from entering in early March and began providing inadequate aid through the controversial GHF at the end of May.
Middle East Eye reported on Tuesday that renowned famine expert Professor Alex de Waal accused Israel of "genocidal starvation" of Palestinians in Gaza through its ongoing deadly siege on the enclave.
With basic food items disappearing from markets and families going days without enough to survive, scenes of people collapsing from hunger and sheer exhaustion have become increasingly common on Gaza's streets.
At least 127 Palestinians, including more than 85 children, have died of starvation since Israel's blockade resumed in March, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid at distribution sites operated by the GHF, manned by Israeli soldiers and US security contractors.
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