There’s a familiar script Israel uses every time it commits an aid massacre in Gaza
Palestinians carry wounded people who were shot by the Israeli army an aid massacre at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site in central Gaza, 30 May 2025
Tareq S. Hajjaj writes in Mondoweiss on 4 June 2025:
Reem al-Akhras, a mother of seven, headed to the American aid distribution center in Gaza on Tuesday morning to obtain food for herself and her family. She carried a plastic bag in her hand, hoping to use it to carry the aid she expected to receive.
Reem waited with thousands of civilians near the center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in the al-Alam area of Rafah. But instead of receiving food rations, she was killed by a gunshot to the head. She returned to her children at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, wrapped in a white shroud.
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By now, these “aid massacres” are following a similar pattern. Starving civilians crowd near the distribution site, waiting for a signal from the Israeli army or GHF mercenaries to enter. The Israeli army opens fire on the crowds, either outside of the distribution point before the aid is distributed, as happened on Tuesday, or after it invites the civilians to enter, as it did on June 2, when the Israeli army killed 75 people after quadcopter drones instructed civilians via loudspeaker to enter.
The army and the GHF then either outright deny what happened, like they did on June 2 — asserting that the allegations of a massacre were “completely false” — or the army says it fired warning shots at individuals approaching the site “suspiciously,” as it did on Tuesday, claiming it had identified suspects who had breached designated access routes approximately “half a kilometer” from the compound. According to an Israeli army spokesperson, Israeli forces fired warning shots and, when the suspects continued to approach, opened fire.