Summary
- At least 31 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in Rafah after Israeli forces opened fire during a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid event.
- Survivors recount being targeted by tanks, drones, and quadcopters while queuing for food; international groups condemn the GHF as unsafe and politicised.
- U.S. military contractors and Israeli coordination behind the aid mission face backlash amid rising global scrutiny of humanitarian access in war zones.
A Bleeding Queue for Bread: Hunger Meets Gunfire in Gaza
On June 1, 2025, what began as another desperate dawn in Gaza’s al-Alam Roundabout turned into one of the most searing humanitarian disasters in recent memory. As thousands of civilians gathered at the gates of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—a U.S.-backed and Israeli-approved initiative to distribute food—gunfire erupted. Tanks, drones, and quadcopters rained down bullets. Children and parents alike crumpled under fire. The goal was bread; the result was carnage.
The GHF, launched earlier this year with the stated intent of depoliticising aid, has instead ignited global condemnation. Its deployment of private U.S. military contractors and tight coordination with the Israeli Defense Forces has blurred the line between humanitarian relief and military choreography. On May 30, just days before the Rafah massacre, the Boston Consulting Group terminated its partnership with the GHF, citing concerns over its operational neutrality. The Foundation’s own head, Jake Wood, had resigned even earlier.
Yet it was civilians like 13-year-old Yazan Musleh who paid the price for this collapse in trust. Hit in the stomach while waiting with his father and brother, he now lies in a makeshift hospital tent with his intestines ruptured—an emblem of a besieged population forced to gamble their lives for sustenance.
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation halted aid distribution, pressing Israel to boost civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its distribution sites, after dozens of Palestinians were killed while seeking supplies this week https://t.co/sziZfMm6Ri pic.twitter.com/mPG2QPCdi2
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 4, 2025
What Really Happened at Rafah: Survivor Accounts Paint a Darker Truth
- Eyewitnesses report gunfire began before any aid was distributed, contradicting claims of crowd control gone wrong.
- Victims were hit while standing far from the distribution point, some waiting on hills or inside cars.
- Israeli forces allegedly used tanks, quadcopters, and live fire to disperse the crowd, leading to panic and chaos.
Thirteen-year-old Yazan and his father Ihab had walked more than an hour from al-Mawasi to reach the GHF gates at Rafah. “When I looked behind the hill, I saw tanks not far away,” Ihab recalls. He told his sons to wait on a nearby slope. Minutes later, gunfire erupted.
Yazan was hit in the abdomen. His brother Yazid saw his intestines spill out. They rushed him to Nasser Hospital in a donkey cart. He survived after surgery, but his future remains uncertain.
Nearby, Mohammed al-Homs, a father of five, was shot in the leg and mouth. “We were looking for food for our hungry children and were met with drones and tanks,” he said from his hospital bed.
Khaled al-Lahham, supporting 10 family members, was shot in the thigh while still in his car. “I never imagined I’d face death for a box of food,” he said.
These testimonies contradict the framing of the incident as a tragic mishap. Survivors describe a deliberate and coordinated barrage unleashed before any distribution had begun. Their words echo across the international community now questioning the GHF’s very existence.
A Humanitarian Façade? Scrutiny Builds Around the GHF Model
- The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was conceived as a U.S.-Israeli workaround to traditional UN aid routes.
- Boston Consulting Group and GHF’s founding head resigned before the first distribution, citing neutrality concerns.
- International aid groups accuse the GHF of operational opacity and compromising humanitarian principles.
Launched with much fanfare, the GHF was meant to bypass political bottlenecks by utilising private security and Israeli logistical access. But in doing so, it replaced neutrality with militarisation.
Jake Wood, a former U.S. Marine and veteran of humanitarian logistics, resigned days before the launch, raising alarms about the GHF’s capacity to remain impartial. BCG soon followed. Both departures raised red flags that international bodies like the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières have since echoed in stronger terms.
Israel has justified the firing as crowd control in a volatile war zone. But the fact that this was the second mass casualty event at a GHF site in less than a month has amplified calls for independent investigations.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office maintains that the GHF remains a “vital channel,” even as survivors like Ihab Musleh ask, “If they don’t want to distribute food, why lie to people and kill them like this?”
In Hunger and in Death: The Price Gaza Pays for Aid
- The incident reflects a deeper crisis: militarised humanitarianism where aid becomes an extension of power projection.
- Families continue queuing despite fatal risks, with many saying they have no other option.
- The future of aid in Gaza now hinges on global trust, not just food supply.
For Palestinians in Gaza, the Rafah incident is not an aberration. It is the boiling point of a broader pattern: a zone where humanitarian relief is gated, surveilled, and often deadly. As the war drags on and the siege tightens, the desperation grows. More than 80% of the population is food insecure. Hospitals run in tents. Children like Yazan live between surgeries and shellings.
What the world witnessed in Rafah is not merely a breakdown of logistics, but the erosion of moral lines. “We’re desperate,” says Ihab Musleh. “Hunger is killing us. And now bullets too.”
Unless accountability follows and neutral aid is restored, the tragedy in Gaza will not be the last—only the most recent chapter in a story written in blood and dust.
When Food Becomes a Battlefield
The Gaza humanitarian aid shooting 2025 lays bare a catastrophic truth: in a landscape where the line between aid and warfare has blurred, even bread lines have become targets. The incident at Rafah was not an isolated tragedy but a systemic failure—of trust, neutrality, and international accountability. Survivors’ accounts, resignations from within the GHF, and the global condemnation following the carnage all point toward a deeper structural crisis where military actors overshadow humanitarian intent.
This is not simply about one failed distribution—it’s about what kind of precedent the world is willing to accept. Can aid be militarised under the pretext of efficiency? Can food be distributed under gun barrels and still be called humanitarian? If international mechanisms continue to abandon impartiality, the world’s most vulnerable will remain trapped—not only by hunger, but by geopolitics that see them as collateral.
The world must choose: restore the sanctity of humanitarian aid, or risk turning every future food queue into another front line.
