Human Rights Watch said on Friday that Israeli troops at the sites of the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) have killed Palestinian aid seekers in acts that amount to war crimes.
“The dire humanitarian situation is a direct result of Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war – a war crime – as well as Israel’s continued intentional deprivation of aid and basic services, ongoing actions that amount to the crime against humanity of extermination, and acts of genocide,” read the HRW report.
Mass-casualty incidents have taken place on a near-daily basis at or near GHF sites in Gaza. According to the UN, more than 850 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food there since late May, most by the Israeli army, the report added.
“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at HRW.
Breaking: new @hrw report finds that Israel’s regular gunning down of Palestinians it is starving are war crimes & that lethal GHF mechanism has turned aid distribution into regular bloodbaths—govts should act to stop Israel’s extermination of Palestinians https://t.co/7FCyMeJndV pic.twitter.com/zmHIrVgL9G
— Omar Shakir (@OmarSShakir) August 1, 2025
“US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.”
Earlier last week, a retired US soldier who worked for the notorious Israeli- and US-backed GHF has told the BBC that he had “without question … witnessed war crimes” in the killing of civilians seeking food aid in the besieged strip.
Anthony Aguilar told the BBC last Friday that he saw Israeli soldiers and US contractors use live ammunition, artillery, mortar rounds, and tank fire on civilians at food distribution sites.
“In my entire career, I have never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population until I was in Gaza at the hands of the [Israeli army] and US contractors,” he was quoted by the BBC as saying.
Source: HRW (edited by Al-Manar)
