Why humanitarian aid delivery at Gaza is flawed & its fallout deadly

AT least 27 Palestinians were reportedly killed on June 3 amid chaotic scenes at an aid distribution centre in the southern Gaza Strip. A similar incident occurred on June 1, when around 30 civilians were killed as people scrambled to get food supplies at an aid centre near Rafah in southern Gaza.The Israeli and US governments and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — the private contractor backed by Israel and the US to take over aid distribution in Gaza — initially denied reports that Israeli troops had fired on civilians queuing for aid. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee criticised what he called "reckless and irresponsible reporting by major US news outlets."After the June 3 incident, however, the Israeli military admitted that it had fired shots near a food distribution complex after noticing "a number of suspects moving towards them." A GHF spokesperson said it was believed that people had been fired upon after they moved “beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone.”The violence at these privately run aid distribution points should come as no surprise, given the situation. Since the Israeli government imposed its aid blockade in early March, the humanitarian crisis in the Strip has become more acute. By April, the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification), a collaboration between numerous intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, was already reporting that Gaza's whole population was experiencing critical levels of hunger.The aid distribution system put in place by the GHF, meanwhile, has been widely criticised. On May 25, the day before the GHF began operations in Gaza, its American director, Jake Wood, resigned. He said he believed the organisation would not be able to fulfil the basic humanitarian principles of "humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence."The GHF's aid distribution plan is similar in character to a plan published in December 2024 by an organisation of many former high-ranking Israeli military officers, the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF). The group proposed to take control of aid distribution from the UN agency, UNRWA, which was the main organisation overseeing aid distribution until it was banned by Israel earlier this year.The IDSF plan proposes that "Israel will oversee the aid distributed by international organizations, effectively dismantling the distribution networks of the UNRWA and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, guided by the principle of 'the hand that distributes the aid is the hand that controls it."This would be achieved with the creation of tent cities for internally displaced people (IDP), described as ‘humanitarian zones’. About 90 per cent of the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are IDPs. The IDSF plan, acknowledging that "extensive built-up areas have been left destroyed, or are no longer inhabitable," says that "it is currently neither feasible nor recommended that the IDPs return at the conclusion of the war."Under the plan, parts of the Gaza Strip still inhabited by Palestinian civilians will be divided by a "system of longitudinal and transverse axes." Each ‘IDP city’ created within these divisions will be managed as a "separate temporary administrative territory", following the principle of ‘divide and rule’.The plan calls for responsibility for humanitarian aid in Gaza to pass "to a Humanitarian Directorate based on IDP cities and biometric certificates." This is called the "Day After Plan" by the IDSF, designed as a way to control Gaza's population, while driving a wedge between civilians and Hamas in order to destroy it. This, despite the fact that a senior Israeli military commander has said it is impossible to eliminate Hamas.The way the GHF is organising aid distribution fulfils some principles of the IDSF plan. It replaces UN aid distribution with a private outfit, backed by both Israel and the US, yet it provides aid through only four sites. These are located unevenly in the Gaza Strip — three in a small area southwest of Rafah and the fourth south of Gaza City in an area dominated by the Netzarim corridor, which is controlled by the Israeli military.People queuing for access to aid reportedly have to walk along a narrow fenced corridor into a larger aid compound. Once inside, they are subject to ID checks and eye scans to further control the distribution for aid. This has reportedly resulted in long hours of waiting in the heat and led to chaotic scenes, where people have broken down fences in a bid to get supplies. Among the people reported to have been killed on June 3 were three children and two women.The GHF scheme had already been criticised before the violent incidents by both Palestinians and international aid organisations. The UN children's fund spokesperson, Jonathan Crick, has asked: "How is a mother of four children, who has lost her husband, going to carry 20 kg back to her makeshift tent, sometimes several kilometres away?"As someone who researches urban design, conflict and displacement, it is clear to me that designing the aid distribution system around only four "mega sites" in limited areas in the Strip leads to the sort of overcrowding and chaos that have made violence all but inevitable.In my opinion, in concentrating these sites while extensively demolishing habitable areas in the Strip, Israel is effectively weaponising essential civilian mechanisms against Palestinians. The aid scheme appears to prioritise political and territorial issues over the humanitarian distribution of aid.The GHF system enables Israel to further concentrate civilians into makeshift encampments. Here, they face inadequate and unhygienic conditions and shelter, while also being vulnerable to attacks by the Israeli military.Now, people trying to access aid are dying. The international community must urgently put pressure on both sides to agree to a ceasefire and on Israel to open up Gaza for a rapid large-scale humanitarian operation. To maintain the current GHF system is to invite further tragedy.Courtesy: The ConversationIrit Katz is Associate Professor, Architecture and Urban Studies, University of Cambridge.

Why humanitarian aid delivery at Gaza is flawed & its fallout deadly

Irit Katz

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