Medical relief agency has treated more than 1,300 patients for gunshot wounds sustained near notorious GHF aid sites in Gaza.
Doctors Without Borders, better known by its French-language acronym MSF, has called for the immediate end to Israel’s militarised food distribution scheme in Gaza, which it described as “institutionalised starvation and dehumanisation”.
In a grim report released on Thursday, titled “This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing”, the medical nonprofit said that it operates clinics in Rafah, southern Gaza, near two GHF aid distribution sites under the control of the Israeli military and private US contractors.
Since those sites opened in May, they have become synonymous with “stampedes, suffocating crowd surges, violent looting and lethal ‘crowd control’ measures”, MSF said in its reports.
“The GHF distribution sites fall dangerously short of any recognised standard for safe and dignified humanitarian distributions,” the report said.
“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 organisation said.
MSF teams were “mentally prepared for responding to conflict – but not to civilians killed and maimed while seeking aid”, it said.
MSF’s primary care clinics have turned into mass casualty units since GHF took control of aid distribution in Gaza, it added.
Over a seven-week period in June and July, MSF received 1,380 injured people and 28 dead bodies at its two primary care clinics in Gaza’s al-Attar and al-Mawasi areas, which are close to two GHF distribution sites.
The patients included 174 suffering from gunshot wounds, among them women and children, the report said, but most patients were young men and teenage boys.
A significant number of patients from GHF sites in Khan Younis arrived with gunshot wounds to their lower limbs bearing a precision that “strongly suggests intentional targeting of people within the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire”, MSF said.
The report noted that many patients had also sustained injuries from “crowd control” measures, including pepper spray and other kinds of physical assault.
Patients injured at GHF sites typically arrived covered in sand and dust “from time spent lying on the ground while taking cover from bullets”, the report adds.
“People are being shot like animals,” an MSF coordinator said in the report.
“They’re not armed. They’re not soldiers. They’re civilians carrying plastic bags, hoping to bring home some flour or pasta. And my question is: how high is the price they have to pay for one bag of food?”