The Struggle to Get Aid Into Gaza
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The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza is now in month 20, with no end in sight. The war is grinding on, and negotiations for a ceasefire for hostage exchange are officially ongoing, but we haven't seen any breakthrough yet. That's our colleague Anat Pellid. She's been covering the conflict in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis that's unfolding there, a crisis that's been getting worse.

Last week, a controversial new plan was put in place to help distribute aid. It's backed by Israel and the U.S., and it promises to deliver food to Palestinians in Gaza. But implementation has been mired in chaos and disorder. So you have Gazans who are very hungry and desperate, and all of them trying to make their way to these centers and get food, get boxes of food.

And what we've seen, you know, on the first day, the very first day of the launch, we saw large crowds break into one of the, you know, distribution sites. And there was looting and there was chaos and the American staff had to retreat. And we know that the Israeli military fired warning shots.

Violence has broken out twice this week as Palestinians made their way to a distribution center. More than 40 Gazans have been killed trying to get aid, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, rescue services and witnesses. The Israeli military says some people approached its troops on their way to the distribution site. The military fired warning shots as well as shots near individuals who failed to retreat. The military added it was reviewing reports of casualties.

Delivering aid to people in Gaza has become one of the biggest challenges in the war, a conflict where the separation between combatants and civilians is blurred and no solution has worked. In the meantime, people are facing starvation. How bad is it? How bad is the humanitarian situation in Gaza right now? The situation is pretty bad.

A lot of people are living in tents. There's very little food. So we're seeing kind of a state of chaos as Hamas kind of also loses some sort of grip on the strip or, you know, it's weakened. There's just kind of a breakdown. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Wednesday, June 4th. Coming up on the show, deaths, disorder and a controversial humanitarian aid plan in Gaza. ♪

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Humanitarian aid has been a flashpoint in Gaza since the start of the war. ...against Hamas in Gaza, and the humanitarian toll on its population has been devastating. According to the United Nations, 90% of Gazans are displaced. The aid and the food and all of this is at the center of the debate about this conflict.

I mean, we had statements from Israeli officials at the start of this war after October 7th, 2023, when, you know, Israel was in shock and, you know, it was a very bloody day. And basically people were making statements like no aid should enter Gaza and American officials have tried to push for more aid. But it's been a constant back and forth.

For much of the conflict, the United Nations has been responsible for distributing aid at hundreds of sites across Gaza. What the UN would do is it has trucks of aid and it would basically get it in the strip and then it would get it to around 400 distribution sites, so all across the strip, and it would get to Gazans. The problem is that Israel has said that a lot of that aid was stolen by Hamas and that that's a big issue because it's trying to destroy Hamas.

The Israeli government said that Hamas steals aid to support its war effort, which the group denies. Humanitarian groups, including the UN, claim that Israel limits aid, turning it into a weapon of war. Israel denies the claim.

Basically, the UN was saying not enough trucks are going in. They would count it by trucks. The aim was like hundreds. But there was just a bit of back and forth also between the UN and Israel, kind of both sides kind of accusing each other of being responsible for not enough aid going in. Throughout the war, the situation led to major shortages in food and other necessities. And this made getting aid into Gaza incredibly dangerous.

By mid-2024, aid trucks and storage depots became targets for Palestinian smugglers, UN and Israeli officials said. Gunmen would overrun trucks and loot them as they entered the Strip. Humanitarian groups said the looting was only done by desperate people. Israel argued that it was done by criminals and by Hamas. In January, there was a reprieve when Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire. As part of that deal, more aid flowed into Gaza.

During that time, aid was surging. We had hundreds of trucks a day. And that was a time when, you know, there wasn't fighting and it was, Gazans started to feel like maybe things were gonna, you know, were looking up. And they started to get food that they hadn't seen in the past. You know, things like fruit, meat, you know, things like that are never really common.

The ceasefire ended in March, and soon after, Israel imposed a blockade during which no aid, medicine, or fuel entered Gaza. Israeli officials said the idea was to pressure Hamas to release hostages. But it also led to widespread hunger, according to residents and aid groups. Israel faced international pressure to lift the blockade, which it did last month. But the humanitarian crisis continued.

In an effort to address the issue, Israel announced a new plan, one that had been in the works for months. Aid would begin flowing into Gaza through a new group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Can you tell us about them? Who are they and who funds them? There's a lot of question marks about this new aid plan. So we know it's basically an Israeli-American plan. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a private entity that's kind of overseeing this whole aid operation.

So it's basically registered in the U.S. currently, and they are basically leading the whole effort.

But they've also had some crises going into this. There was the resignation of Jake Wood, who was the chief of the foundation. And there's a lot of questions about the funding. We don't know where the funding comes from. That's the bottom line. We've had some Israeli politicians, lawmakers from the opposition, suggest that Israel is funding some of this. They have not provided proof of that. So there's a lot of question marks about who is funding this and why.

There's also the question of how involved Israel is, which seems, you know, based on my conversations with people familiar and former officials, it seems that Israel did have a big role in this. And how does the aid system under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, GHF, work? We talked earlier about how the UN had like hundreds of distribution centers. How is this different now?

Yeah, so this is radically different. So what we have is GHF has set up right now for it has four planned centers. So you have three in Rafa in southern Gaza on an Israeli constructed corridor called Morag.

And then you have another one on an Israeli-constructed corridor called Nitzarim, which is more in the center of Gaza. So first of all, we don't have sites in the north at the moment, which is an issue because before there were many possibilities to go get aid. But now it's trickier, especially if you can't move or something like that. To distribute aid, GHF relies on a private security company called Safe Reach Solutions, or SRS.

The company is based in the U.S. And they are working with GHF, and they are basically tasked with delivering the aid. So what we see is, we've also seen this in videos, and we know this from our reporting, it's a lot of former American vets

including from Afghanistan and Iraq. And they are also on the ground in Gaza, helping secure the aid site itself, monitoring security cameras and other such things. Why them? Do they have any experience doing this kind of work? It sounds sort of unusual for a security company to be administering aid.

It is unusual. We're not quite sure why they were selected. They're pretty new in the game. They did one thing, which, you know, the Israeli government sees as kind of a proof of concept, but they were actually securing a corridor called Netsarim in the center of Gaza, which kind of bisects the strip, the north and the south. And they were securing it during the latest ceasefire. So that is their experience. But we don't know much else about them.

A spokesperson for SRS said that it's supported by highly trained specialists, including people with decades of experience in conflict zones. In the lead-up to the launch of GHF's new system, more than 20 countries and aid groups have criticized the plan, saying it puts people unnecessarily at risk and can't meet the needs of the population. Critics are also concerned about Israel's involvement in the distribution of aid.

Israeli troops are stationed nearby the actual aid distribution center. They don't go in. The Americans are there, but they're nearby. And that is a concern because that didn't happen under the U.N. system. There were no kind of, you know, Israeli troops nearby. Still, the plan for GHF to deliver aid to Palestinians went ahead. In late May, GHF made its first deliveries into Gaza. Overall, how would you say that's going?

Not very well. I would say that the system is characterized right now by violence and chaos and disorder. That's next. As part of its new aid system, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation plans to open four distribution centers in Gaza. The UN and other humanitarian groups previously had hundreds of sites all over the Strip. Last week, GHF opened its first distribution site in Rafah, where the group plans to hand out food directly to Gazan families.

Thousands of Palestinians lined up to receive their first boxes of aid from the GHF. Could you walk us through just like what that process looks like on the ground? What do we know about how that all actually works? Yeah, so from what our understanding, the centers are actually open for very limited hours and Gazans are claiming that the supplies runs out quite fast.

So, you know, there are boxes, but there's no screening. So what happens is, you know, each person comes and it's not necessarily a situation where, you know, you get a full box or you even get a box. So what's been happening is that Gazans have been waking up really early. We spoke to someone who even went at midnight to try to go camp out there. People are desperate because sometimes people leave empty handed. They wait and it's chaotic and they don't get anything.

A person briefed on the issue said that Safe Reach Solutions, the security company mentioned earlier, has run into coordination problems and has tried to apply lessons from their experience in Iraq and Afghanistan that don't necessarily translate to Gaza. For example, SRS assumed that crowds collecting aid would be orderly. But with many Gazans facing severe food insecurity, massive and chaotic crowds have converged at distribution sites.

The chaos also turned into violence on Sunday, as Palestinians gathered to receive aid and fought over boxes of food.

On Sunday, we had an incident where basically, you know, large, large crowds were making their way again to the one distribution center that's open in Rafah. And what happened is a lot of people, you know, made their way early. And about what the Israeli military says is a kilometer away from the distribution center, the Israeli military fired warning shots at the crowd who, you know, posed a threat to the troops, they say. And, um,

You know, we don't know exactly what happened. We spoke to several witnesses, but we do know from Palestinian health officials and medics that, you know, there were injured people. They were killed people over 20. GHF says that no shooting took place at its distribution center. That violence continued into this week. On Tuesday, a similar situation took place near the same distribution center.

This time we had very large crowds again making their way to the one open distribution center, which was set to open at 5 a.m. So GHF on its social media said to Gazans don't come before. It's not allowed. Come on the designated routes.

But, you know, we spoke to Gazans who said that one person had camped out, you know, came starting at midnight. Other people came at 2.30 a.m., you know, just trying to get food. And around the same area, about half a kilometer away from the distribution center, according to the military, the military said that it fired warning shots again, you know, crowds that were getting too close.

And then when they didn't listen, it continued to fire and they deviated, it said, from the designated routes. So now we're just seeing a really dangerous situation where this has happened several days in a row. The Israeli military also says it's important to note that, you know, it claims that Palestinian gunmen have also been opening fire. To get a better understanding of what's happening at the aid centers, Anat and our colleagues have been talking to eyewitnesses who were there.

So the first person we spoke to was Mohamed Nahal. He's 44, and he's from Khan Yunus.

And he left his tent at 2.30 a.m. And he went with his cousin, Mahmoud. And basically they started, you know, going early. And they were waiting for 5 a.m. when the center would open. But then about, you know, 100 meters from a roundabout called Al-Alam roundabout, they said that they suddenly got fired upon from all directions.

He saw dead people around him, including his cousin, who was shot. He says was killed. The second person that we spoke to was Ayman al-Gharib from Rafah. And he's living in a tent with his three children, 42.

— He actually left at midnight. As early as midnight, he said he wanted to secure a spot in line early because, you know, once the site opens, the crowds rush and, you know, there's no proper system.

He said his kids are hungry and want aid.

And then basically he said that they began to be fired at around 3 a.m. And, you know, it was coming from all directions. Wow. Yeah. And he also saw a person next to him, we said, was killed. And yeah, that is what we have from Ayman. Did the witnesses say anything about sort of the situation in which they were fired on? I mean...

You know, the Israeli military seems to be saying that these crowds are overwhelming them. They're getting too close. Did these eyewitnesses say anything about that at all? Did they dispute it? So Ayman said that he did not deviate from the routes and that they didn't pose a danger. So that's what I know. Generally, I just, you know, it's just been very confusing. What has GHF said about the violence?

GHF in general has presented the whole endeavor, the whole kind of launch of the aid plan as a success. It's talked about how many boxes it's been able to deliver. They count by meals during the past week. And they have also said that no shooting has taken place at their distribution sites, which to our understanding is true. To our understanding, the shooting has actually taken place

near the distribution sites where GHF says that it's not responsible for securing that area. We know that from witnesses that the Americans who are kind of securing the actual compound itself have used at times riot prevention methods like, you know, smoke grenades, things like that, but no deaths or injuries. And just broadly speaking, what have Palestinian civilians in Gaza said about the rollout? Do they feel like

they're getting what they need? Is it a success? Is it a failure? I think in general, a lot of people we spoke to have said that the system is unfair. So there's no, people can take, you can take as many, it's kind of whoever can grab the box faster. So there's no checks on who's taking, maybe you come every day for several boxes and maybe one person just isn't able to get any.

I've talked to some people who are too scared to go because they think it's too dangerous. I mean, obviously, I think people are very happy to be getting food because, you know, it's a desperate situation. Today, the GHF paused its operations for the day for reorganization and improvements. The group says it will reopen on Thursday. And meanwhile, for Palestinians in Gaza, is there a sense that things might get better for them? Worse? I don't think it's looking very good. People are trying to survive.

It's just a really low moment right now. I think people are happy that aid is coming in, but it's just been such chaos this past week. And I'm sure they're hoping for better, but I think they really want to cease fire. And we're not, it's not clear that we're, that's going to happen immediately. That's all for today, Wednesday, June 4th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Suha Maia and Abira Youb.

Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.