CAIRO: Hundreds of Palestinians stormed sites where aid was being distributed by a foundation backed by the US and Israel on Tuesday (May 27), with desperation for food overcoming concern about biometric and other checks Israel said it would employ.
By late afternoon on Tuesday, The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, said it had distributed about 8,000 food boxes, equivalent to about 462,000 meals after an almost three-month Israeli blockade of the enclave.
Hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, some on foot or in donkey carts, flocked towards one of the distribution sites in the southern city of Rafah, which is under full Israeli army control , to receive food packages.
Footage, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed lines of people walking through a wired off corridor and into a large open field where aid was stacked. Later, images shared on social media showed large parts of the fence torn down as people jostled their way onto the site.
“What happened today is conclusive evidence of the occupation’s failure to manage the humanitarian crisis it deliberately created through a policy of starvation, siege, and bombing,” the Hamas-run government media office said in a statement.
Some of the recipients showed the content of the packages, which included some rice, flour, canned beans, pasta, olive oil, biscuits and sugar.
Although the aid was available on Monday, Palestinians appeared to have heeded warnings, including from Hamas, about biometric screening procedures employed at the foundation’s aid distribution sites.
“As much as I want to go because I am hungry and my children are hungry, I am afraid,” said Abu Ahmed, 55, a father of seven. “I am so scared because they said the company belongs to Israel and is a mercenary, and also because the resistance (Hamas) said not to go,” he said in a message on the chat app WhatsApp.
