By Suha Ma'ayeh and Sudarsan Raghavan

For many in Gaza, it is an agonizing daily choice. Should they risk a trip through combat zones to visit one of the enclave's four functioning aid-distribution sites that are frequently scenes of chaos and violence? Or should they try to make it another 24 hours, or more, without food.

Mahmoud al-Tarifi's 22-year-old son, Osama, set out for a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation center near the Netzarim corridor, an Israeli-patrolled zone that bisects Gaza. His family hadn't eaten a filling meal in weeks, Tarifi said, and Osama wanted to get rice, dried beans or other supplies.

He never came back. Osama was shot in the chest on June 24, Tarifi said, after Israeli troops opened fire toward a surging crowd. "We got a call from one of his friends saying my son was wounded," he said. Tarifi was told Osama died on his way to the hospital.

Israel's army says it is reviewing reports that its troops caused civilian casualties in the area that day.

Since GHF, backed by Israel and the U.S., began delivering aid in late May, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and thousands more wounded while trying to get food at the handful of functioning depots, Palestinian health authorities say.

Israeli forces acknowledge their practices have contributed to the problem. They say troops stationed around aid sites have opened fire toward people who deviate from approved access routes, ignored warning shots and approached soldiers.

The Israeli army says it is installing fences and better signage, among other things, in an effort to improve safety. "GHF is doing everything it can to provide food quickly, safely and at scale," said a spokesperson for the group, adding that GHF has asked Israel's military to do more to protect civilians.

Still, Palestinians keep dying. Many, like Osama, are young men willing to brave stampeding crowds and a multitude of dangers. In addition to the risks posed by Israeli troops, gangs of thieves armed with knives and other weapons prey on those who manage to secure aid cartons.

Tarifi and his extended family live crowded in a single room in central Gaza. Before Israel moved to channel nearly all humanitarian aid to Gaza through the GHF, Tarifi was able to get food such as chickpeas, cooking oil and lentils from United Nations agencies with depots close to his home.

The GHF site nearest to Tarifi's place is about a mile away. Osama set out with friends in the early morning, hoping to get a box of food, doled out one per person by GHF. To get there, Osama needed to cross the militarized Netzarim corridor, which is a no-go zone for Palestinians most of the time.

"After what happened to my son, no one in the family goes to collect aid, " Tarifi said. "It has become a death trap for young men."

It has been this way since late May, after Israel partially removed a nearly three-month blockade on aid and commercial goods into the Gaza Strip. At the same time, it replaced several hundred food-distribution points run by humanitarian aid agencies with four GHF sites, not all of which have been consistently open.

Israeli officials have said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, known as Unrwa, which relies on a staff of thousands of local Palestinians to deliver food, medicine and other humanitarian aid in Gaza, is too closely tied to Hamas to act neutrally.

Unrwa has said it has taken action against employees accused of being associated with Hamas and that they represent only a tiny fraction of its employee base.

Israel rolled out the new distribution system built around GHF in what it says is an attempt to keep Hamas from stealing aid and using it to fund and support its militants.

Before the blockade in March, Hamas had been seizing humanitarian goods and selling them, according to Arab, Israeli and Western officials. The restrictions created a cash crunch for the group, leaving it struggling to pay salaries and fund other needs, Arab intelligence officials have said.

A State Department spokesperson said the Trump administration supports GHF, because it is "the only pipeline that denies Hamas resources and control."

How aid will be distributed in Gaza is one of the main sticking points in ongoing talks to secure a new cease-fire, Arab mediators say. Hamas wants aid to flow in through humanitarian groups and the former U.N. system, arguing that is the only way to get the necessary volumes.

The militant group has sharply criticized the GHF system as dangerous and has warned Palestinians not to cooperate with it. GHF accused Hamas of carrying out an attack on a busload of its Palestinian employees in June that left at least eight dead.

More than 20 countries and the U.N. have criticized the Israeli-American-backed plan for placing civilians in unnecessary danger, and aid groups have refused to cooperate with it. Aid is still going into Gaza through the U.N., but in significantly smaller amounts.

Saher al-Sabbagh, 22, regularly visited a GHF site in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. He said he witnessed chaotic scenes virtually every time. Once, he said, he watched a crowd push past people seriously wounded by gunfire to get into the queue for food.

"I saw a man next to me, dying. Nobody was paying attention to him, nobody removed him or asked him how he was," Sabbagh said. "When we returned from the aid point, we saw him still in the same place."

Sabbagh said he had made the trip with his three brothers, and each came back with about 2 pounds of flour, some pasta and some cooking oil. Despite the risks, he went back alone two weeks later after the family's food ran out.

"I still had to go and risk it in order to live," he said. He came back with another 2 pounds of flour, a can of beans and a few other items.

By late June, the pattern of violence had grown worse, he said. His mother saw the rising number of deaths at food-distribution sites reported on the news in Germany, where she lives, and ordered him to stop going.

"My mental state is zero. I live under constant stress," said his mother, Erfat Abu Alkeir, 47. "A part of me is buried beneath death and hunger. That's why I prefer my children stay alive for one last moment of hope, even if they don't find a single piece of bread."

"She said it is better that we are hungry than losing one of her sons," said Sabbagh. The family is down to its last several pounds of flour. "If that runs out, we'll go back to starvation."

Write to Sudarsan Raghavan at sudarsan.raghavan@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 13, 2025 11:43 ET (15:43 GMT)

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