The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) is appalled by Israel’s repeated deliberate attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza attempting to access humanitarian aid. Since non-UN aid distribution sites in militarized zones began operations on 27 May, people approaching these sites or waiting for aid have been repeatedly targeted with gunfire and shelling primarily by Israeli forces. The majority of these attacks occurred near distribution sites administered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by the United States and Israel. More than 550 aid-seekers have been killed while at least 4000 were injured since the foundation began operations.
“Death is the only choice offered by Israel to Gazans today, whether through starvation or live-fire at aid distribution sites This is not a humanitarian operation, this is the use of starvation as a weapon of war with the objective of systematically annihilating the Palestinian people in Gaza,” says Ziad Abdeltawab, Executive Director at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS).
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians in repeated attacks on humanitarian convoys or people waiting for aid. In one of the deadliest incidents, the ‘Flour Massacre’ in February 2024, the military killed 112 people and injured nearly 800 as it opened fire on a crowd waiting for aid in northern Gaza. Israel’s policy of weaponizing aid also involves a wider pattern of aid obstruction including through the repeated enforcement of blockades, military strikes on humanitarian agencies and their staff, and efforts to slander and stigmatize them to hamper their operations. This policy is directly supported and enabled by the United States through its funding of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) implementing Israel’s humanitarian aid policy. The American-registered GHF, which involves for-profit US logistics and is operated by private American security companies, recently received $30 million in US funding.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is demonstrably failing to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza. It is worsening the dire situation that Israel’s policies since October 2023 have created. Israel must immediately allow for the resumption of independent UN-led humanitarian coordination and aid distribution in Gaza and allow for immediate, unimpeded access to humanitarian assistance at the scale and speed needed to respond to the population’s needs.
In conformity with the orders of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), states must increase pressure on Israel to comply with its international obligations, and suspend any relations that enable its violations, including its ongoing genocide in Gaza, occupation of Palestinian territories and apartheid policies. State obligations include imposing an arms embargo, suspending trade and cooperation agreements as well as supporting independent international mechanisms to investigate these violations and Israel’s broader policies in its war on Gaza. States must also enforce the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants issued in November 2024 against Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and previous Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.
The humanitarian conditions in Gaza have worsened to unfathomable levels after nearly two years of relentless attacks by Israel often targeting civilian infrastructure, and agricultural land, and systematically obstructing aid. The Food Security Cluster has warned that the current volume and speed of aid deliveries are ‘critically inadequate’ to meet the population’s needs and that the Gaza Strip is at the brink of famine. According to UNICEF, more than 5,000 children below the age of five were admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition in May alone, with a daily average of 112 children since the start of 2025.
Since the first day of the war on Gaza, Israeli leaders made their intentions clear: no food, no water, no electricity into the Strip. More than 20 months have passed since, and Israel now appears to be in the final stages of its cruel plan to erase Palestinians, transforming even aid distribution into a killing operation.
Background:
In May 2025, the Israeli government established ‘humanitarian aid’ distribution points in Israeli-controlled areas, constructed by them and operated by private American security companies in close proximity to IDF military positions, in violation of basic principles of humanitarian aid of impartiality, neutrality and independence.
In 2024, the ICJ repeatedly ordered Israel to allow the urgent and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid, highlighting the ‘prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities’ to Palestinians. In July 2024, the ICJ ordered Israel to immediately end its occupation of Palestinian territories and affirmed the obligation of other states to refrain from relations with Israel that may entrench or help maintain its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
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