The Israeli-backed and U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said that its distribution on Thursday would only be for Palestinian women. Eyewitnesses say that GHF staff pepper-sprayed them and beat them with batons, while two women were killed.
In an unusual move since it first began operations, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announced on its Facebook page that aid distribution would today be exclusively for women. The distribution was supposed to be carried out at two locations in southern Gaza: the Saudi neighborhood in Rafah and the city of Khan Younis. The GHF’s call instructed women in Gaza to head to these points at 9:00 a.m.
“Our local team will guide women to a designated area where each will receive a box,” the GHF said in its announcement in Arabic, accompanied by what appears to be an AI-generated photo of smiling male GHF workers holding boxes and welcoming a group of women approaching them. “Men are requested to avoid the site during this distribution,” the statement added.
But when the women arrived, GHF personnel attacked them with pepper-spray and batons, while Israeli military vehicles opened fire with bullets over their heads, eyewitnesses said in testimonies obtained by Mondoweiss. One woman who was at the site says she witnessed a GHF worker beating a pregnant woman on her stomach. Other eyewitnesses reported to local journalists that two women were shot dead by the Israeli army and several others were injured.
As of the time of writing, Gaza’s Ministry of Health has not published a detailed report about the incident, but has issued a separate statement confirming two deaths due to malnutrition within the last 24 hours.
The women came from all over southern Gaza — al-Nuseirat, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, Rafah, and al-Mawasi — flocking to the Saudi neighborhood location in Rafah, which is under the complete control of the Israeli military. The distribution point is located at least five kilometers from the nearest inhabited area, meaning that any woman reaching the location and carrying a food box weighing at least ten kilograms would have to walk back five kilometers while suffering from exhaustion brought on by malnutrition.
Footage obtained by Mondoweiss shows tens of thousands of exhausted and hungry women walking in visible fatigue and exhaustion, nearly collapsing as they make their way to collect food. Some are dragging their children along with them.
According to several testimonies relayed to local journalists, the GHF entirely disregarded these circumstances and seemed more concerned with capturing images of its personnel distributing boxes as evidence of its “humanitarian mission,” the eyewitnesses said.
Testimonies suggest that what happened to the women mirrored previous incidents involving men attempting to collect food, in which the GHF has been accused of luring people to its distribution points, where Israeli forces then carry out what many describe as “aid massacres” under the guise of humanitarian distribution.
The number of Palestinians that Israeli forces have targeted in or near the GHF distribution centers has surpassed 1,000 killed, and over 6,011 injured since last May, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.
‘She screamed that she was pregnant, but no one listened’
Raghad Abu Odeh, an aid-seeker from today’s incident, arrived at the site at 5:00 a.m. from Deir al-Balah. “I belong to a family of nine daughters and one brother,” she says. “My father was shot in the head at one of the aid centers weeks ago. He is now bedridden and immobile. When we heard that the distribution was for women only, I walked to the location to get food. But I did not witness any food distribution — it was a distribution of death.”
“The American organization said the distribution would be organized and safe, and that every woman would receive an aid box,” Abu Odeh continued. “We went there immediately, because we are dying of hunger every day. But we arrived only to see the Palestinian woman being humiliated — beaten, sprayed with pepper, struck with batons, and bullets fired over our heads.”
Abu Odeh says that shortly after arriving at the distribution center, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles that had been stationed outside the center advanced toward them, opening heavy machine gun fire overhead their heads. “Then there were tear gas canisters launched among us, and stun grenades thrown directly at us,” she recounts.
“They brought us here to openly humiliate us. I didn’t receive any food. Many of the women who came didn’t receive any food. Maybe 20 percent of those who arrived got something. The rest were subjected to humiliation and oppression,” she continues.
Abu Odeh describes seeing a pregnant woman “struggling and bleeding” in the middle of the crowd, “due to the chaos and fear of being shot.” She then says that one of the GHF’s staff members “hit her multiple times on her stomach with a baton.”
“She screamed that she was pregnant, but no one listened. Instead, they hit her more until she collapsed to the ground. Some women managed to pull her away, and she was taken to a hospital,” Abu Odeh explains.
Abu Odeh also describes how the GHF employees pepper-sprayed women in the face “until it burned,” and also recounts the use of “obscene insults” that were hurled at them by GHF staff who spoke in Arabic. “Why were we called to this? To be humiliated in every possible way?” Abu Odeh says. “We don’t want their aid. We want them to shut down this place and for food distribution to return to what it was before this organization and its lethal weapons arrived — it doesn’t feed us, it kills us.”
“Let them kill us all at once and end this tragedy, or let them find another way,” Abu Odeh continues. “Open the crossings and allow food in through humanitarian means that do not degrade our dignity. We are tired. Tired of hunger, betrayal, and oppression. We cannot bear any more.”
“Is there a mother anywhere in the world who can feel what the Palestinian mother feels, she who used to be the symbol of dignity, strength, and resilience?” Abu Odeh reflects. “Is this what she has been reduced to now? We now live on water and salt to keep our intestines from decaying.”
“That’s all we have — water and salt,” she adds.
Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Gaza Correspondent for Mondoweiss and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union.
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