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Waves of desperate Palestinians overwhelmed a humanitarian distribution centre in southern Gaza on Tuesday, as a controversial new aid system run by a previously unknown US-backed group began operations in the shattered enclave.
The chaotic episode added to concerns about the ability of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to manage aid distribution in the territory, where the UN has warned that half a million people face starvation after Israel blocked all aid deliveries for more than two months.
GHF said that at “one moment in the late afternoon, the volume of people” at one aid centre was such that its team “fell back to allow a small number of Gazans to take aid safely and dissipate”.
A person involved in the running of the centre said the situation had become chaotic and that the operators had lost control. The Israeli military said its soldiers had fired warning shots nearby.
Footage broadcast on Al Jazeera showed huge crowds of people streaming through what appeared to be the remains of a wire fence as they rushed to access aid.
GHF said normal operations had resumed after the incident.
The desperate conditions created by Israel’s blockade and renewed offensive have drawn intense international criticism. The UK has frozen trade talks with Israel over what it called the “abominable” situation in Gaza, and the EU last week pledged to review its trade agreement with the country.
Even Germany, one of Israel’s staunchest allies, has joined the condemnation, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz saying on Tuesday that he was “shocked” by the “appalling suffering of the civilian population” in Gaza and that the government would discuss how to respond.
In its statement, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said that since operations began in Gaza on Monday, it had distributed 8,000 boxes of food, equivalent to 462,000 meals. It has previously said it plans to reach more than 1mn Palestinians “by the end [of] the week”.
The Israeli military said four distribution hubs had been set up in recent weeks, of which two — both near Rafah in southern Gaza — began operating on Tuesday.
Until Israel imposed its total blockade on Gaza in March, aid deliveries to the enclave had been overseen by the UN, which brought aid to people in multiple locations around the coastal enclave.
Under the new system led by GHF, individual Gazan families will have to travel — in many cases for long distances on foot — to receive boxed meals from distribution hubs secured by US private security contractors and the Israeli military. The hubs will be located primarily in the south of Gaza.
Israeli officials say the new approach is designed to prevent aid being diverted to Hamas. But UN officials say they have not seen large-scale diversion of aid, and have refused to take part in the scheme, denouncing it as a “fig leaf” for the forced displacement of the local population, and a violation of humanitarian principles.
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN’s humanitarian arm OCHA, said the GHF plan was “a distraction from what is actually needed”, and called for all crossings into Gaza to be reopened for aid deliveries.
Israeli military officials and other western officials have also privately criticised the plan as insufficient to remedy the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the war-torn enclave.
The credibility of the new approach was further undermined on Monday, when GHF executive director Jake Wood resigned, saying “it is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.
On Monday night, it said it had appointed John Acree as Wood’s interim replacement.
