Institutionalized starvation as 'Israel' enables aid violence: MSF
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MSF slams "Israel's" militarized aid system in Gaza as “orchestrated killing,” as over 1,700 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food, and calls grow to end the violence.
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A Palestinian wounded while returning from one of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution centers is treated in Khan Younis, Monday, June 30, 2025. (AP)
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières – MSF) has issued a report condemning the militarized food distribution system imposed by the Israeli occupation in Gaza, describing it as a form of “institutionalised starvation and dehumanisation”.
In a report released Thursday titled “This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing,” the international medical NGO demanded the immediate end to the current system of humanitarian aid distribution, managed by the Israeli military and private US contractors under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
MSF said it operates clinics near two GHF distribution points in Rafah, southern Gaza, and has directly witnessed the devastating human toll of the current system.
Since GHF took over operations in May, MSF staff have observed lethal crowd control tactics, stampedes, suffocating surges, and violent looting, conditions that the organisation says would not be tolerated in any other conflict zone.
“Nowhere else in the world where MSF operates – including in the most volatile conflict zones – would this level of violence around an ‘aid distribution’ site be tolerated. This must stop now,” the report stated.
What were intended to be aid stations have effectively become sites of mass injury and death.
MSF’s primary care clinics in al-Attar and Mawasi have been transformed into emergency trauma units, overwhelmed by the scale of violence inflicted on Palestinians simply trying to obtain food.
Over 1,300 injured in seven weeks
Between June and July, MSF clinics near the GHF sites treated 1,380 injured individuals and received 28 dead bodies. Among the wounded were 174 people with gunshot injuries, including women and children, though the majority were young men and teenage boys.
The organisation noted that many of the gunshot wounds were to the lower limbs, with a level of precision that indicates intentional targeting rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire. This, MSF argues, points to a deliberate effort to disable and humiliate civilians attempting to access food.
“People are being shot like animals,” an MSF field coordinator was quoted as saying. “They’re not armed. They’re not soldiers. They’re civilians carrying plastic bags, hoping to bring home some flour or pasta.”
In addition to gunshot wounds, many patients showed signs of injuries from pepper spray and physical assault, while others arrived covered in sand and dust after being forced to lie on the ground for cover during live fire incidents.
MSF's findings sharply contradict claims by the Israeli occupation and its Western partners that the GHF model is an effective or humane solution to the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. Instead, the report suggests that violence is embedded in the aid system itself, weaponizing food access to further punish an already besieged population.
Over the past 24 hours, 51 Palestinians were killed and 230 others injured while attempting to obtain humanitarian aid, raising the total number of "Martyrs of Bread" to 1,706 killed and over 12,030 injured.
Read more: Tony Blair Institute linked to disturbing Gaza reconstruction plan: FT
