It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
Is that what Israel’s politicians and its military are calling it?
What could be more apt? Armed quadcopters, white phosphorus smoke grenades n hellfire missiles, tanks, artillery and mortars. Oh yes there are the 2,000 pound bombs Israel drops that vaporize human beings within a huge radius. More than one million unarmed women, children, the elderly and disabled – and men – are constantly on the move walking from south to north of Gaza and back again.
Many weak, injured or orphaned Palestinians stay in what the IDF touts as “safe” places that are not at all safe from fires, snipers and bombs. Most are living under plastic bags or under the teetering ruins of their homes. 70% of Palestinians are living in areas Israel demands be evacuated or in Israel’s no-go zones.
In spite of the 21 May murders of two young lovers who worked at Israel’s Washington embassy, any compassion for Israel had vanished within hours.
Within days, the world watched the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) “deliver” food to tens of thousands of starving Gazans thronging to get food. GHF, registered in Switzerland, has engaged US-based Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) to implement distribution. On its sketchy website, SRS boasts it is a security and military logistics company, with experience in “crisis zones and hard to reach areas.” It “delivers impactful solutions”-- like the catastrophic murders and injuries suffered by starving Palestinian some call a deliberate massacre.
Wednesday there was a harrowing video showing thousands of starving Palestinians rushing to get aid. Many of them herded into cage-like lines, from the distribution point in Rafah in southern Gaza.
The UN’s aid agencies want nothing to do with GHF’s aid strategy. The agencies say GHF “violates humanitarian principles and raises the risks for Palestinians”. Israel has blocked all aid, food, medicine, supplies, and water for more than two months: UN agencies plus major humanitarian organizations are prevented from distributing the thousands of truckloads of food already lined up at the border crossings to Gaza.
Eleven humanitarian organizations including War on Want, Christian Aid, and Sabeel-Kairos UK signed a letter refusing to work with GHF because it is a private foundation with ties to the US & Israeli governments, and is connected to right-wing security and military interests.
Moreover, there are reports that much of the food delivered by GHF is of Israeli origin, raising the suspicion that Israeli companies are making a profit from it.
Last Wednesday, chaos broke out when tens of thousands of starving Palestinians arrived at two food distribution sites run by the GHF. According to the Palestinian health ministry, 11 people were killed and dozens injured in that incident.
On Thursday, GHF threatened to shut down food distribution if the situation was not orderly. The GHF media release said its personnel "encountered a tense and potentially dangerous crowd that refused to disperse".
"To prevent escalation and ensure the safety of civilians and staff, non-lethal deterrents were deployed - including smoke and warning shots into the ground." These included ear-splitting projectiles, that exploded with smoke and flashes.
"These measures were effective", it added, "and no injuries occurred." No independent source could confirm there were no injuries.
Above: Bodies of Palestinians being brought to the Nasser hospital after Israeli soldiers opened fire on people trying to reach aid points west of Rafah. (photo credit: Abdallah F.S. Alattar/ Anadolu/Getty Images)
Dozens of starving Palestinians shot by IDF
Yesterday, the IDF fired on thousands of Palestinians trying to reach another food distribution point in Rafah. More than 31 were killed and hundreds injured.
According to Reuters,
“Residents and medics said Israeli soldiers fired from the ground at a crane nearby that overlooks the area, and a tank opened fire at thousands of people who were en route to get aid from the site in Rafah. Reuters footage showed ambulance vehicles carrying injured people to Nasser Hospital…. The Red Crescent also reported that 14 more Palestinians were injured on Sunday by Israeli fire near a separate site in central Gaza. GHF also operates the aid distribution site in central Gaza.”
Shaina Low, communication adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major aid group operating in Gaza, said “We cannot take part in a system that violates humanitarian principles and risks implicating us in serious breaches of international law.”
Above: Water distributed to Palestinians in Gaza during severe shortage as of 1 June. For more read here.
Until seven days ago, GHF, with no official website or accessible online presence, was headed by CEO Jake Wood, a US military vet and Wisconsin footballer who ran Team Rubicon, a disaster relief organization. A career military man, he was a veteran of the Iraq war, and a sniper in Afghanistan. He led the brand new Israeli and American-backed GHF in early 2025, and less than five months later suddenly quit– ostensibly because neither the UN nor most aid agencies would work with GHF. GHF claims it has a $100 million commitment from an unnamed central European country government. The U.S. and Israel insist they are not funding it, though rumours are that Israel has guaranteed the $100 million; Israeli marketing firms are “grappling with the mystery: who is funding the humanitarian aid operation in Gaza?”
One thing is for sure. Israel is becoming more desperate - their friends including Britain, France and Canada are pulling away. France’s President Emmanuel Macron said, "If we abandon Gaza ... we kill our own credibility in the rest of the world."
In response, Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, wrote on X on Saturday: "Tragically, it’s already done: the West has sacrificed its credibility through decades of free passes granted to Israel."
Even Germany’s fanatical support for Israel and every murderous thing it does is starting to sag. Recently the new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he was very critical of Israel,
"To cause such suffering to the civilian population, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas terrorism. . . . The massive military strikes by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip no longer make any sense to me."
Establishment Jews in Canada are still pulling out all the stops in their revenge for the Palestinians’ attack in Oct. 2023, and the Zionists’ fight to continue the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Toronto’s 50,000 person march for Israel showed how robust support for Israel is still in mainstream Canadian Jews and how gutless the powers that be – whether critics in the Canadian government, Toronto’s city councillors or community leaders –are to stop the display of chauvinism and racism toward Palestinians and millions of Canadians who support an end to Israel’s genocide.
At the top: Never Forget What They Did to Gaza, by Caitlin Johnstone. Oil on canvas, 2025. Photo reference @moaz.abutaha.