[Salon] ‘The Hunger Games’: Inside Israel’s aid death traps for starving Gazans

“We didn’t care about the shelling,” Hamza recounted to +972 Magazine. “We just ran toward the trucks’ lights.”

But in the chaos of the crowd, the brothers got separated. Hamza managed to grab a 25kg bag of flour. When he returned to their agreed-upon meeting spot, Hatem wasn’t there.

“I kept calling his phone, over and over, without answer,” Hamza said. “My heart ached. I began seeing dead bodies being carried over to where I was. I refused to believe my brother might be among them.”

A Palestinian man is seen wounded as hundreds more walk along Al-Rashid Street carrying bags of flour after aid trucks entered through the Zikim area in northern Gaza City, June 17, 2025. Several of those seeking aid were shot by Israeli forces. (Yousef Zaanoun/Activestills)

Hours after Hatem went missing, Hamza received a call from a friend: a photo of an unidentified body had surfaced in local Whatsapp groups, taken at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza. Hamza sent a cousin — a tuk-tuk driver — to check. “Half an hour later, he called back, his voice shaking. He told me it was Hatem.”

Upon hearing this, Hamza passed out. When he came to, people were pouring water on his face. He rushed to the hospital, where a man wounded in the same artillery strike explained what had happened: Hatem and about 15 others had tried to hide in tall grass when Israeli tanks opened fire.

“Hatem was hit by shrapnel in his legs,” the man said. “He bled for hours. Dogs circled them. Eventually, when more aid trucks arrived, people helped move the bodies onto one of them.”

In total, 25 Palestinians were killed that morning waiting for aid trucks on Al-Rashid Street. Hamza brought Hatem’s body back to Gaza City and buried him beside their mother, who was killed by an Israeli sniper in August 2024. Their older brother, Khalid, 21, had died months earlier — in a January airstrike while evacuating wounded civilians on his horse cart.

“Hatem was the light of our family,” Hamza said. “After we lost our mother and Khalid, he became everyone’s favorite — including my grandmother and aunts. He visited them and helped them. My grandmother collapsed when she saw his body. She still weeps.”

Hatem had been a skilled car accessories technician with dreams of opening his own shop. “He was kind and generous and loved children; he always gave them sweets,” Hamza said. “Everyone who knew him came to his funeral. May God hold the occupation accountable for stealing our lives, just because we are from Gaza.”

Thousands of Palestinians walk along Al-Rashid Street carrying bags of flour after aid trucks entered through the Zikim area in northern Gaza City, June 17, 2025. Several of those seeking aid were shot by Israeli forces. (Yousef Zaanoun /Activestills)

Near-daily massacres

As the world’s attention turns to the war between Israel and Iran — and with Israel simultaneously cutting off internet and telecommunications services, imposing effective media and information blackouts on millions of Palestinians — Israel’s attacks on starving Gazans awaiting aid have only intensified.

After two months without a single drop of food, medicine, or fuel entering Gaza, a trickle of white flour and canned goods has been allowed in since late May. Most of it has gone to sites in Rafah and the Netzarim Corridor managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), guarded by private American security contractors and Israeli soldiers. On June 10, small shipments also began arriving via aid trucks operated by the World Food Programme (WFP).

But with hunger deepening, people no longer wait for the trucks to move safely past Israeli troops. Instead, they rush toward them the moment they appear, desperate to grab whatever they can before supplies vanish. Tens of thousands gather at the distribution points, sometimes for days in advance, and many go home empty-handed.

Starving civilians gather in massive crowds, waiting for permission to approach. In many instances, Israeli troops have opened fire on the masses — and even during distribution itself — killing dozens as they try to collect a few kilos of flour or canned goods to bring home in what Palestinians have dubbed “The Hunger Games.”

Since May 27, well over 400 Palestinians have been killed and over 3,000 wounded while waiting for aid, according to Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basel. The deadliest single attack on aid seekers occurred on June 17, when Israeli forces fired tank shells, machine guns, and drones into a crowd of Palestinians in Khan Younis, killing 70 and injuring hundreds.

The limited aid trickling into Gaza falls far short of meeting even the most basic needs. As a result, many residents are forced to buy supplies from others who managed to get their hands on some food at distribution sites and are now reselling it in a desperate attempt to afford other essentials.

A Palestinian man carries a bag of flower on Al-Rashid Street, near the Netzarim Corridor, June 16, 2025. (Yousef Zaanoun/ActiveStills)

‘People were being killed, but everyone kept running for flour’

The day after the massacre on Al-Rashid Street that claimed Hatem Shaldan’s life, even larger crowds gathered in the same spot, including 17-year-old Muhammad Abu Sharia, who arrived with four relatives. The few aid trucks that arrived that week gave a sliver of hope to starving families.

Abu Sharia lives with his family of nine in their partially destroyed home in southern Gaza City, the only son among six sisters. “My family didn’t want me to go at first,” he said. “But we’ve been starving for two months.”

At 10 p.m., he made his way to Al-Rashid Street, where crowds had gathered on the sand near the shore, waiting for aid trucks. People shared warnings in hushed voices: “Stay behind the trucks. Don’t run in front — you might get crushed.”

Abu Sharia was shocked by what he saw. “Elderly people, women, children, all just waiting for a chance at flour.” Then, without warning, artillery shells began falling around them.

Panic broke out. Some fled. Others, like Abu Sharia, sprinted toward the trucks. “People were being killed and wounded, but no one stopped. Everyone just kept running for the flour.”

He managed to grab a bag lying beside a dead body, but only made it a few meters before a gang of four men with knives surrounded him and threatened to kill him if he didn’t hand it over. He let it go.

Still hoping to reach another truck, he waited hours longer. Then he saw people shouting, “More aid has arrived!” The trucks rolled in, barely slowing down as crowds swarmed them. “I saw a man fall under one [truck] and get his head crushed.” With ambulances too far away to approach for fear of Israeli airstrikes, the wounded and dead were dragged away by donkey carts and tuk-tuks.

Palestinians carry away a wounded man hit by Israeli fire while trying to get food aid on Al-Rashid Street, near the Netzarim Corridor, June 16, 2025. (Yousef Zaanoun/ActiveStills)

Abu Sharia was the only one from his extended family able to bring back a bag of flour. His family, worried sick, was relieved to see him. They immediately baked bread and shared it with relatives.

“No one risks their life like this unless they have no other choice,” he said. “We go because we’re starving. We go because there is nothing else.”

‘One young man was blown in half. Others had their limbs ripped off’

Yousef Abu Jalila, 38, used to rely on humanitarian aid distributed through the WFP to feed his family of 10. But no such package has arrived in over two months, and the price of what little remains in the markets has skyrocketed.

Now sheltering in a tent in Al-Yarmouk Stadium in central Gaza City, after their home in the Sheikh Zayed neighborhood was destroyed during the Israeli army’s October 2024 incursion into northern Gaza, he told +972: “My children cry to me that they’re hungry, and I have nothing to feed them.”

With no white flour or remnants of canned food, Abu Jalila has no choice but to show up at the aid distribution points or wait for the aid trucks. “I know I might be one of those killed while trying to get food for my family,” Abu Jalila told +972. “But I go, because my family is starving.”

On June 14, Abu Jalila left the tent camp with a group of neighbors after hearing rumors that aid trucks might arrive in the Equestrian club area in the northwestern part of the Gaza Strip. When he got there, he was surprised to find thousands of others hoping to bring back food for their families.

As the hours passed, the crowd drifted closer to an Israeli military position. Then, without warning, several Israeli artillery shells exploded in the middle of the gathering.

Palestinians carry away a wounded man hit by Israeli fire while trying to get food aid on Al-Rashid Street, near the Netzarim Corridor, June 16, 2025. (Yousef Zaanoun/ActiveStills)

“I still don’t know how I survived it,” Abu Jalila said. “Dozens of people were killed, their bodies torn to pieces. Many others were wounded.”

In the chaos, some fled in panic while others scrambled to load the dead and injured onto donkey carts as there were no ambulances or cars nearby. “One young man was blown in half; others had their limbs ripped off,” Abu Jalila recalled. “These were innocent people, unarmed, just trying to get food. Why kill them this way?”

Shaken and empty-handed, Abu Jalila walked four hours back to Gaza City, his legs trembling. When he reached the tent, his children were already outside, waiting. “They were hoping I’d bring food,” he said. “I wished I could die rather than see the disappointment in their eyes.”

He vowed never to return — but with nothing left to feed his family and no aid distributed since, he knows he’ll have to try again.

‘We knew we could die. But what choice do we have?’

Similar massacres have occurred in southern Gaza. Zahiya Al-Samour, 44, could barely stand after running over two kilometers while fleeing an Israeli attack on crowds gathered for aid in the Tahlia area of central Khan Younis.

Struggling to catch her breath, she told +972: “My husband died of cancer last year. I can’t provide for my children. There’s no food in the house, not since the blockade and the halt in aid deliveries that used to sustain us during the war.”

Driven by desperation, Al-Samour went to Tahlia on the night of June 16, hoping to be among the first in line for the arriving aid trucks. Along with thousands of others, she camped out along the road.

Thousands of Palestinians walk along Al-Rashid Street carrying bags of flour after aid trucks entered through the Zikim area in northern Gaza city on June 17, 2025. Several of those seeking aid were shot by Israeli forces. (Yousef Zaanoun/Activestills)

But the next morning, as people waited near Al-Rashid Street, tank shells suddenly rained down on the crowd, killing over 50 people.

“I saw people losing limbs, bodies torn apart,” she recounted. “Three of my neighbors from Al-Zaneh [north of Khan Younis] were killed. Their bodies were unrecognizable.”

Though she escaped without physical injury, the trauma lingers. “My heart is still trembling,” she said. “I watched people die while others bled on donkey carts; there were no ambulances.”

She returned empty-handed to the tent she erected in Al-Mawasi after the Israeli army ordered her neighborhood to evacuate. “My children are hungry,” she said, her voice cracking. “They’re waiting for me to bring food. I don’t know what to tell them.”

At Nasser Hospital, 22-year-old Mohammad Al-Basyouni lies recovering from a gunshot wound to his back. He was shot on May 25 while trying to collect food in the Al-Shakoush area of Rafah.

“I woke up at dawn and left home [in the Fash Farsh area, between Rafah and Khan Younis] with one goal: to get flour for my sick father,” he told +972. “My mother begged me not to go, but I insisted. We had no food. My father is ill, and we needed help.

“I left around 6 a.m., and soon after I arrived, gunfire broke out,” Al-Basyouni recounted. “I was hit while fleeing — a sniper shot me in the back.” He was rushed to surgery in a tuk-tuk. “I survived, but others didn’t. Some came back in body bags.”

He paused, then added quietly: “We knew we could die. But what choice do we have? Hunger is a killer. We want the war and siege to end. We want this nightmare to be over. I came back wounded, and I brought nothing home. Now my sick father has lost his only provider.”

Palestinians carry away a wounded man hit by Israeli fire while trying to get food aid on Al-Rashid Street, near the Netzarim Corridor, June 16, 2025. (Yousef Zaanoun/ActiveStills)

‘We looked like animals waiting for the feeding lot to open’

Despite living in central Gaza City after being displaced with his family from Beit Hanoun, 48-year-old Mahmoud Al-Kafarna set out on June 15 for the aid center run by GHF in far southwest Khan Younis.

His journey took him hours on foot to Nuseirat, then by tuk-tuk to Fash Farsh, a known gathering spot for those seeking food. He and others walked from 7:30 p.m. until 2:30 a.m., eventually sheltering at Mu’awiyah Mosque until the Israeli checkpoint opened.

At dawn, they approached a sand barrier guarded by Israeli forces. A voice from behind the barrier barked through a loudspeaker: “The aid center is closed. There is no distribution. You must go home.”

Al-Kafarna, like many others, stayed put — familiar with these tactics to thin the crowds. Then came the threats: “Leave or we open fire,” followed by insults like, “You dogs.”

Before they even finished their warning, Israeli forces began firing from their position about one kilometer away from where the crowd had gathered. “Bullets flew overhead,” Al-Kafarna recounted. “Dozens were hit. No one could lift their heads.” Some youth managed to evacuate the wounded to a nearby Red Cross facility, but many didn’t make it.

When a second announcement allowed entry half an hour later, the crowd surged forward, running two kilometers with hands raised and white bags lifted — a gesture of surrender. Then he and others navigated another two kilometers past the checkpoint, guarded by heavily armed private contractors.

“You’ll find them exactly as Hollywood portrays them: armed to the teeth, wearing dark sunglasses and bulletproof vests marked with the American flag, earpieces behind their ears, their weapons aimed directly at our bare chests,” Al-Kafarna recalled. “They shoot at the ground beneath the feet of anyone who tries to approach the aid, which is placed behind a hill they’re stationed on.”

When they finally reached the aid stockpile behind a hill, “it was chaos,” Al-Kafarna recalled. “No order, no fairness, just survival.”

To avoid being trampled or attacked, people carried knives or moved in coordinated groups. “Once you grabbed a box, you emptied it into your bag and ran. If you stopped, you’d be robbed or crushed.”

What did he manage to take home? “Two kilos of lentils, some pasta, salt, flour, oil, a few cans of beans.” Al-Kafarna paused, eyes heavy. “Was it worth it? The bullets, the bodies, the crawl through death? This is how far we’ve fallen, begging for survival at the barrel of a gun.

“We looked like animals waiting for the feeding lot to open in a barn devoid of morality or compassion,” he continued. “Hunger has driven us to seek food from the hands of our enemy — food wrapped in humiliation and disgrace — after once living with dignity.”

[Salon] ‘The Hunger Games’: Inside Israel’s aid death traps for starving Gazans

‘The Hunger Games’: Inside Israel’s aid death traps for starving Gazans

Near-daily Israeli massacres at food distribution sites have killed over 400 Palestinians in the past month alone. Survivors describe stepping over corpses to get their hands on a bag of flour: ‘What choice do we have?’

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Near-daily massacres

‘People were being killed, but everyone kept running for flour’

‘One young man was blown in half. Others had their limbs ripped off’

‘We knew we could die. But what choice do we have?’

‘We looked like animals waiting for the feeding lot to open’