Israeli reservist tells WSJ troops fired on Palestinians waving white flags near aid centres - War on Gaza

Al-Ahram Weekly

4 days ago

Israeli occupation forces opened fire on Palestinians holding white flags near an aid distribution site in Gaza in mid-June, an Israeli reservist told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)—one of several recent incidents in which troops shot at starving civilians seeking food.
The reservist said the group approached soldiers outside a designated route near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site.
'We have an unwritten rule that if you are worried and they get too close and you see that it could be something that puts you and your team at risk, you don't take that risk,' he said.
Though he claimed soldiers gave verbal warnings, he stated that troops opened fire after the crowd crossed what they regarded as a red line.
Israeli forces are instructed to fire warning shots or aim at the knees, but 'mistakes happen,' he added. The Journal reported that soldiers shot at civilians holding white flags after they deviated from the designated path.
The GHF is an alternative aid mechanism created by the US and Israeli governments to replace and undermine the United Nations (UN)-led system, which Israeli authorities have systematically obstructed.
It operates without UN oversight or coordination from humanitarian agencies. It runs four food sites, primarily in southern Gaza, which open intermittently and are frequently overwhelmed.
Crowds often arrive before dawn, uncertain whether food will be available. Rations typically consist of flour, lentils and oil, with no meat, dairy or fresh produce.
Jameel al-Nahhal, 21, from Rafah, told The Journal: 'The crowds are huge, and the quantities are tiny. The amount I bring back lasts a day or two, at most.'
At the launch of the Khan Younis site in June, a collapsed gate led to tens of thousands of people overrunning the facility. Private security contractors fled as people looted fencing, lightbulbs and a generator, while Israeli and US officials monitored the scene remotely.
In response, Israel imposed a one-kilometre so-called "buffer zone" and instructed troops to treat anyone straying from the marked path as a threat and open fire, according to soldiers cited by The Journal.
Last week, the Israeli occupation army announced it had withdrawn from securing the Khan Younis site. GHF stated that private contractors would take over crowd control, though it did not confirm whether the change applied to other sites.
The incident reflects a broader pattern of deadly force used around aid distribution points.
On Sunday, Gaza's civil defence agency reported that Israeli troops killed at least 93 Palestinians as they opened fire on civilians gathering around aid convoys. Spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said 80 were killed in northern Gaza, nine near Rafah and four in Khan Younis.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said a 25-truck convoy 'encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire' shortly after entering Gaza City.
Qasem Abu Khater, 36, told AFP he had gone to collect flour: 'The tanks were firing shells randomly at us and Israeli sniper soldiers were shooting as if they were hunting animals in a forest.' WFP condemned the attacks as 'completely unacceptable.'
WFP and UNICEF warn that most children in Gaza face extreme food deprivation, compounded by the collapse of health services and widespread shortages of clean water and sanitation. Acute malnutrition is expected to rise sharply in North Gaza, Gaza and Rafah governorates.
According to WFP, the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) snapshot, endorsed by 17 UN agencies and NGOs, found that 470,000 Palestinians in Gaza are facing catastrophic levels of hunger (IPC Phase 5). The entire population is experiencing acute food insecurity.
The report projects that 71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers will require urgent treatment for acute malnutrition, up from 60,000 children estimated at the beginning of 2025.
Despite this, WFP reports that more than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance, sufficient to feed one million people for four months, remains stuck in aid corridors due to Israeli restrictions. Hundreds of pallets of lifesaving nutrition treatments are also prepositioned for entry.
The WFP stated that it remains ready to distribute the supplies by humanitarian principles once access is granted.
The UN estimates that nearly 800 Palestinians have been killed while attempting to access food since late May. It reports that 87.8 percent of Gaza is now either under evacuation orders or designated as militarized zones, forcing more than two million people into the remaining 12 percent of the territory, where essential services have collapsed.
In ceasefire negotiations, Hamas has demanded the dismantling of the GHF and the reinstatement of a UN-led humanitarian aid operation.
Meanwhile, Israeli restrictions on humanitarian operations persist. On Sunday, Israeli authorities revoked the residency permit of Jonathan Whittall, the UN's top humanitarian official in Israel, who had repeatedly criticized the government's actions in Gaza.
Israel has killed at least 58,895 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded nearly 140,000 since October 2023. Independent estimates suggest the actual death toll could be close to 100,000, with thousands still buried beneath the rubble.
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