Inside the aid-seeker ‘kill zone’ Israel created in Gaza
Palestinians transport aid victims to a Red Cross clinic in Rafah after they were reportedly shot while waiting at the GHF site, 12 July 2025
Al Jazeera writes on 21 July 2025:
People of Gaza are starving, and one of the only ways they can get any food is to risk death by going to an aid distribution point run by the notorious Israel- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency has analysed satellite imagery of the GHF aid distribution centre in the Shakoush area of Rafah, taken on July 13.
We trace the journey of desperately hungry people waiting for hours, sometimes days, to walk a gauntlet of Israeli tanks, armoured vehicles, and drones where they risk being shot by Israeli soldiers. Here is what they have to go through:
How do people get into the centre?
It is nowhere near as simple as “getting there”. People are allowed to take vehicles or carts up to a particular point, after which they have to disembark. This point is at least 1.5km (0.9 miles) from the distribution centre, which means that they would have to walk back that distance carrying whatever sacks or boxes of food they can get.
To try to make sure they get something, people start arriving hours or even days before the centre distributes. Once they arrive, they do not leave because they do not want to lose their spot, as some have walked for hours already to get there.
What is ‘al-Joura’?
Wanting to avoid waiting out in the open, people hurry over a distance of about 560 metres (1,800 feet) past an Israeli barrier to “al-Joura”, a sandy pit between dunes, where they seek cover from Israeli bullets and settle in to wait for an unknown time.
The physical hardship is compounded by unbearable heat and long waits, as families often arrive 12 to 24 hours early to wait for a “go signal” to get some food.