By CHRISTOPHER LOCKYEAR
Medecins Sans Frontieres

June 3—Deprived of food, water and medical aid, desperate Palestinians are penned in by fences, waiting to receive basic necessities for survival that were denied by Israel for nearly 90 days. Then chaos erupts. Shots are fired. Bloodshed. More injury and death compounds weeks of hunger and 19 months dehumanisation.

The recent disastrous distributions by the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation confirmed that the US-Israel plan to instrumentalise aid is not only ineffective but clearly deadly. On 27 May, during the first distribution in Rafah, south Gaza, dozens of people were shot and injured as wholly insufficient amounts of basic supplies were distributed amid chaos. Again, on 1 June and 3 June, scores more people were killed during shootings at or near GHF aid distribution points Rafah. On 2 June, Doctors Without Borders medical teams treated several of the wounded at the overwhelmed Nasser Hospital – a medical compound already struck three times in the weeks preceding as the Israeli forces ground offensive continued.

Through this dangerous and reckless approach, food is now not being distributed where it’s needed most but is instead directed only to areas where Israeli forces choose to amass civilians. This means the most vulnerable – especially the elderly and people with disabilities – have virtually no chance of accessing the food they desperately need.

The claim that this unprincipled, failing mechanism is necessary to prevent the diversion of aid is false. This is part of a broader tactic to reinforce a one-sided narrative: the only way to deliver aid is to militarise it. Aid contingent on serving military occupation objectives – not human survival.

The GHF initiative seems to be a cynical ploy by the Israeli forces to feign compliance with International Humanitarian Law. In practice is uses aid as a tool to forcibly displace people as part of what appears to be a broader strategy to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip – a continuation of a war waged without limits.

The regular humanitarian system is still being strangled by the restrictions imposed upon it. Israeli authorities have allowed a trickle of aid trucks into Gaza, only to obstruct them immediately after they cross the border, preventing life-saving assistance from reaching the people who need it most, including children and pregnant and lactating women. Since the start of the war, Doctors Without Borders teams have directly treated patients when we have been able to bring supplies into Gaza.  Doctors Without Borders medical teams in Gaza City saw a 32 per cent increase in the number of patients presenting with malnutrition during the first fortnight of May. And today 100 per cent of Gaza still remains at risk of famine, according to the United Nations.

An insufficient amount of aid is being allowed into the Strip, merely a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over.

Since 19 May, the few hundred food trucks brought in – an insufficient fraction of what is needed – have spread despair among the 2 million plus people who have been largely deprived of food, water, and medication for three months now. Totally or partially blocking humanitarian aid to enter Gaza has aggravated the situation of all Gazans.

Forcing humanitarian organisations to move such inadequate amounts of aid, when the Israeli siege has created a situation of unbearable need and despair, leads to lootings.  This is the consequence of a society being pushed to the brink – its very fabric torn apart by relentless violence and deprivation. The only outcome is yet more preventable deaths and injuries, and the impossibility of delivering aid in a way that respects people’s dignity.

Along with displacement orders and bombing campaigns that kill civilians, weaponising aid in this manner may constitute crimes against humanity.

Only a lasting ceasefire and the immediate opening of Gaza’s borders for humanitarian aid – including food, medical supplies, fuel and equipment – can ease this man-made catastrophe.

That is why I and thousands of Doctors Without Borders colleagues around the world are urging their societies and governments to join our call to Israel and its allies: Stop weaponsing food. Stop weaponising medicine. Stop weaponsing humanitarian aid.

Humanitarian aid must be provided only by humanitarian organisations who have the competence and determination to do it safely and effectively – not warring parties.

Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), argues the killings in southern Gaza at US-Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution points this week, proves that replacing conventional pragmatic and principled humanitarian aid is as ineffective as it is deadly precisely because it is weaponised aid.