Palestinian children wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen amid shortages of food supplies in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 20, 2024. (Reuters file)
Israeli forces have killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded 62 others in two days, who rushed to get aid from a distribution center under a US and Israeli mechanism.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said Israeli forces “opened direct fire on hungry Palestinian civilians who had gathered to receive aid”.
“This heinous crime occurred during peaceful gatherings of citizens driven by desperate need and extreme hunger to head to locations supposedly providing aid.”
“This crime was part of a dubious engineering project run by the American organization called Gaza Humanitarian Relief (GHF)."
The office accused the US organization of denying "the principles of humanitarian action, namely humanity, neutrality, integrity, and independence”.
The office further added that aid distribution centers set up under this scheme were “nothing but a false humanitarian cover for racist security schemes aimed at humiliating, starving, and, if necessary, killing Palestinians”.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-supported NGO, said it would begin distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza this month after talks with Israeli authorities.
It said it had asked Israel to secure distribution points in northern Gaza, and that Israel had agreed.
An Israeli official recently said that the plan "will include, among other things, the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection."
"It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement."
Gisha, an Israeli NGO, recently said the aid plan in the besieged Gaza Strip “is designed to bring about the forced displacement of the population.”
Analysts, activists, and aid agencies have described the US-Israeli plan for aid relief in Gaza as a "mockery" of humanitarian law.
International aid agencies have already warned that Israeli plans to control aid distribution in Gaza, including the US-backed proposal, will only add to the suffering in the devastated Palestinian territory.
Israel's far-right ruling coalition, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has embraced Donald Trump's proposals on Gaza to displace Palestinians permanently outside the territory and turn it into a seaside real-estate development.
During a recent tour of some Arab states of the Persian Gulf, the US president described aerial images of the widespread destruction from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
"There's practically no building standing. It's not like you're trying to save something," he said.
Despite global outcry to end the "genocidal" assault on the people of Gaza, the Israeli regime recently approved a plan that could lead to the capture of the "entire Gaza Strip."
Arab states have rejected the plan, and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called it ethnic cleansing.
Most Gazans have been displaced at least once during 19 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza on March 2, before resuming its campaign of genocide on March 18 after talks to prolong a six-week ceasefire collapsed.
