Gaza: Dozens are killed as they try to get food from distribution centres
BMJ 2025; 389 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1133 (Published 02 June 2025) Cite this as: BMJ 2025;389:r1133
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed and hundreds injured as they waited to receive food at the controversial US and Israel backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centres in Rafah on 1 June.
Patients told Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff, who were treating wounded people at Nasser Hospital, that they had been shot at from all sides by drones, helicopters, boats, tanks, and Israeli soldiers on the ground.1
Mansour Sami Abdi, a father of four, told MSF, “People fought over five pallets. They told us to take food—then they fired from every direction. I ran 200 metres before realising I’d been shot. This isn’t aid. It’s a lie. Are we supposed to go get food for our kids and die?”
Mohammad Daghmeh, a 24 year old man who has been displaced, said, “I was shot at 3 10 am. As we were trapped, I bled constantly until 5 00 am. There were many other men with me. One of them tried to get me out. He was shot in the head and died on my chest. We had gone there for nothing but food—just to survive, like everyone else.”
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has denied these reports as “false,” saying that its “initial inquiry indicates that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site.”2
However, this is not the first time Israeli forces have killed Gazans attempting to get aid. On the first afternoon that the new Israeli backed aid distribution began on 27 May, Israeli forces shot dozens of people. And in February last year at least 112 people were killed as Israeli troops fired at Palestinians who were trying to collect flour, in what became known as the “flour massacre.”3
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, called the latest mass casualty event a “heinous crime” and said that with “disinformation campaigns in full gear, international media must be allowed into Gaza to independently report on the ongoing atrocities.
He said in a post on X,4 “[In Gaza] aid distribution has become a death trap . . . This humiliating system has forced thousands of hungry and desperate people to walk for tens of miles to an area that’s all but pulverised due to heavy bombardment by the Israeli Army. Aid deliveries and distribution must be at scale and safe.
“In Gaza, this can be done only through the United Nations. The State of Israel must lift the siege and allow the UN safe and unhindered access to bring in aid and distribute it safely. This is the only way to avert mass starvation, including among one million children.”
Aid is weaponised
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been tasked with distributing aid to the Gaza Strip, which has been unable to get lifesaving aid for months because of a blockade by Israel. As a result of the blockade 100% of Gaza is now at risk of famine, the UN has said.
While little is known about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, reports suggest that it plans to hold aid at four hubs in southern Gaza and that Palestinians are expected to travel to secure food and supplies, which they will be able to get only if they pass a screening process for potential links to Hamas. This may involve facial recognition and biometric screening.
The initiative has been roundly criticised by the UN and humanitarian organisations, some calling it a “dangerous, politicised sham” and a “cynical sideshow.”5
MSF has said that “weaponising aid in this manner may constitute crimes against humanity” and emphasised that only a “lasting ceasefire and the immediate opening of Gaza’s borders for humanitarian aid—including food, medical supplies, fuel, and equipment—can ease this manmade catastrophe.”
MSF’s emergency coordinator Claire Manera said, “These events have shown once again that this new system of aid delivery is dehumanising, dangerous, and severely ineffective. It has resulted in deaths and injuries of civilians that could have been prevented. Humanitarian aid must be provided only by humanitarian organisations who have the competence and determination to do it safely and effectively.”
Since 19 May just a few hundred food trucks have been able to get into Gaza, which MSF has said is “an insufficient fraction of what is needed” to help the two million Gazans “who have been largely deprived of food, water, and medication for three months now.”
Medical staff donate blood
Alongside the lack of food, the blockade has left doctors and medical staff struggling to provide care with little to no medical supplies. MSF’s team responding to the mass casualty event at Nasser Hospital was a stark example of this, as staff had to donate blood to patients because blood banks were almost empty.
MSF’s communications officer Nour Alsaqa said that the hospital was filled with men with “visible gunshot wounds in their limbs, and their clothes were soaked with blood.”
Alsaqa added, “They looked shattered and distraught after trying to secure food for their children, returning instead injured and empty handed. Outside there was shouting, sirens, and a constant rush of new arrivals to the emergency room. Amid the chaos, we received confirmation that a colleague’s brother had been killed while attempting to collect aid from the distribution centre.”