The sudden surge in injured civilians came at the same time a controversial new Israeli-US-backed aid distribution scheme started in Gaza, replacing aid groups that had previously delivered food and medicine to besieged Palestinians.
After the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began distributing aid on 27 May, when Israel partially eased an 11-week blockade, the hospital went from treating “about 50 to 70 patients to consistently running patient censuses of about 90 to 100 throughout basically all of June and into July”, he told The i Paper.
Palestinians gather at a GHF aid distribution point near the Nuseirat refugee camp on 25 June, 2025 (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP)
The weeks following the launch of the new distribution scheme have been some of the deadliest since October 2023, with more than 700 Palestinians killed trying to get food, and thousands more injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel lifted an 11-week-old aid blockade, told Reuters the UN figures were “false and misleading”. It has repeatedly denied that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites.
Aid groups and media have accused Israeli forces and armed groups of routinely opening fire on civilians seeking aid at GHF sites. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently reported that Israeli soldiers are deliberately being told to shoot unarmed civilians at aid distribution sites, even when no threat is present. One soldier described the situation as a total breakdown of the Israel Defence Forces’ ethical codes in Gaza.
“It’s all known before they line up to try to get whatever meagre supplies that are provided, and they’re making the choice to go because they have to. There’s no other option.”
MSF doctors treat a man they say was injured at a GHF aid site (Photo: Nour Alsaqqa/MSF)He says they are “herded into these narrow passageways, food is dumped, and they just have to run and grab what they can.”
Within 15 minutes usually the aid runs out, he says, and then the people in charge of distributing the aid “just start shooting”.
Israel denies its soldiers deliberately shoot civilians, claiming the GHF provides direct assistance to people by bypassing Hamas, which they accuse of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell. The European Commission said on Monday it had no reports of Hamas stealing aid.
There are four GHF aid distribution sites located in Israeli militarised zones and run by private American security contractors.
One of the aid bags collected from the GHF aid site (Photo: Nour Alsaqqa/MSF)The GHF is led by John Acree, a former senior manager at USAID, along with Johnnie Moore, an evangelical leader and adviser to the US President, Donald Trump. Despite the global condemnation, the Trump administration pledged $30m in direct funding for the organisation in late June.
However, Israel has banned Unrwa after alleging that a number of the agency’s staff were involved in the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 which triggered the war. The UN subsequently fired nine Unrwa staff after concluding they may have been involved in the attacks.
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He said he had also seen a rise in mass casualty incidents, coinciding with when there is aid distribution. The majority of these patients are young men and boys, but also women and children.
“All the evidence gathered, including testimonies which Amnesty International is receiving from victims and witnesses, suggest that the GHF was designed so as to placate international concerns while constituting another tool of Israel’s genocide,” Amnesty said.
She adds that Israel has a responsibility “as a combatant and as an occupying force” to “spare civilians and to make sure that civilians have free access to humanitarian systems.”
Both the IDF and GHF were approached for comment.
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