Top UN and Palestinian health officials are warning that the new Israeli-controlled aid distribution system in Gaza is being used as a ‘deadly trap’, turning humanitarian relief into a weapon of genocide and forced displacement.
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), condemned the new Israeli aid mechanism, calling it a ‘deadly trap’ that threatens the lives of starving Palestinians, and urged Israel to lift its crippling blockade and grant the UN safe and unrestricted access to deliver and distribute aid.
‘The only way to avert mass starvation – including among one million children – is to allow the United Nations to do its job,’ Lazzarini said, demanding that international media be granted access to Gaza to independently document the ongoing atrocities.
Echoing these concerns, Dr Munir Al-Bursh, Director General of the Gaza Ministry of Health, warned that aid distribution points have been transformed into killing zones by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF), who are using them as tools for population control and forced displacement.
On Sunday, the IOF alongside personnel from an American private security firm, carried out a massacre in Rafah, killing at least 32 Palestinians and injuring over 200 others who had gathered to receive aid.
A separate attack near the Netzarim corridor left another Palestinian dead and 30 wounded. Both assaults targeted civilians desperately seeking food and water.
Dr Al-Bursh decried the continued blockade of approximately 3,000 aid trucks stranded in Egypt’s Al-Arish, laden with critical medical supplies.
He warned that the health crisis in Gaza is escalating due to the deliberate withholding of medicine and vaccines, which is fuelling outbreaks of infectious diseases such as meningitis and severe diarrhoea.
Water insecurity has also reached catastrophic levels, with 90% of the population lacking access to safe drinking water.
‘These massacres are not isolated incidents – they are part of a broader campaign of genocide,’ Al-Bursh said, criticising the international community’s silence in the face of Israel’s aggression.
Since October 7th, 2023, more than 178,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Gaza, most of them women and children. Over 11,000 remain missing and hundreds of thousands are displaced.
The UN has accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war by shutting down all crossings for 90 consecutive days.
On May 27, Israel began implementing a new aid distribution scheme, the so-called ‘Gaza Relief Foundation’, an entity backed by both Israel and the US and rejected by the UN.
Aid under this plan is funnelled through buffer zones in southern Gaza, where the IOF soldiers have repeatedly opened fire on civilians amid chaotic scenes of mass desperation.
The quantities distributed are minimal, grossly inadequate for the more than two million Palestinians suffering from acute hunger. UN officials have warned that bypassing international agencies in aid distribution is not only ineffective – it is enabling further war crimes.
Despite mounting global outrage, Israel continues to enjoy unconditional support from the US, shielding it from accountability as it carries out one of the most devastating genocidal campaigns in modern history.
