When bread turns deadly: Gaza women lose their breadwinners at aid centres
Gazans are seen going to and from a GHF aid distribution centre, May 2025
Ola Al Asi reports in Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor on 4 August 2025:
Women in the Gaza Strip spend their nights gripped by anxiety and fear of the unknown, but these nights are especially agonising for those whose husbands have gone to collect scraps of aid to feed their starving children. Fear keeps them awake over the fate of their husbands, who risk their lives along the scarce aid truck routes and at US distribution centres imposed by Israel.
These distribution centres have been operating for the third consecutive month, yet signs of starvation in the Gaza Strip continue to worsen. Malnutrition is increasingly evident on the bodies of residents, especially children and the elderly – an expected outcome of an aid mechanism designed not to end starvation, but to manage and whitewash it to contain global outrage.
On Friday night, 13 June, Ramez Jendiya told his wife he would make a fourth or fifth attempt to reach the US distribution centre in central Gaza, after their food had run out completely. Not a single crumb of bread remained in Jendiya’s home to feed him, his wife, and their five children. Their strength had been drained by nearly 20 months of repeated displacement, until they ended up in a tent at the Palestine Stadium west of Gaza City.
A father with no remaining options, Jendiya had no choice but to risk his life and head to what had become known as the ‘death traps’ in a desperate attempt to find a bite of food for his children. Hoping to return with food after several failed attempts, he left his home on Friday evening, unaware that it would be his last.
His wife knew he might never return, but she could not stop him, knowing that hunger was eating away at their children’s bones and destroying their bodies.
Hours had passed since Jendiya left for the aid distribution centre, and he had neither returned home nor contacted his wife. She had tried to reach him through some of his friends, who had also left their homes, children, and wives for the same reason. Unable to sleep for two days and with no one to reassure her about her missing husband, her anxiety grew with every passing minute, especially after she learned that dozens of aid seekers had been killed by Israeli gunfire at the US aid distribution centre. As the hours passed slowly with no news of Jendiya’s return, efforts had to be made to find him.
Several relatives set out to search for him near the US aid distribution centre in central Gaza, a long and arduous journey that forced them to spend the night near the site outside Gaza City to continue the search the next morning.
They spread out near the site they believed he had visited, asking people about him and showing his photo in case anyone had seen him or recognised his face. After an exhausting search, the relatives encountered a man familiar with the area who told them he had seen five bodies lying beneath the Wadi Gaza Bridge, but no one had been able to reach them due to the extreme danger of the location.
The relatives urged the man to go and inspect the bodies, persuading him with a sum of money, fearing that Jendiya’s body might be among them. Their efforts eventually succeeded, and the man agreed to risk his life to inspect the bodies. Before he set out, they showed him a photo of Jendiya to help identify him if found.
The man stripped to his underwear and raised his hands, fearing he would be targeted by the Israeli quadcopter drones constantly circling the area. Shortly after, he found Jendiya’s body and managed to retrieve it and deliver it to his relatives. The left side of Jendiya’s face had been completely obliterated by an explosive bullet, and a large hole was visible in the back of his head.
Sixty-six other starving people were killed alongside Jendiya near aid distribution centres that day, Saturday, 14 June.
In a testimony to Euro-Med Monitor, Ahmed, Jendiya’s brother-in-law, explained why he refused to go to the US distribution centres for food aid: “I never go to those centres, firstly because they are very far. I would have to walk more than 10 kilometres, and I do not have the strength or energy because of hunger. Secondly, because anyone who goes there is very likely never to return.”
“They are centres for mass execution, not aid distribution,” Ahmed added. He also spoke about his attempt to wait for the aid trucks that Israeli authorities allow into the Gaza Strip in limited numbers through the Zikim crossing, northwest of Gaza City.
“The day before my sister’s husband was killed in central Gaza, I went to wait for the aid trucks entering through the Zikim crossing, hoping to get flour for my family,” he said. “I cannot describe the scene. As soon as the aid arrived, thousands of starving people crowded around it, and then the Israeli gunboats began firing directly and heavily at the crowds. Dozens of young men were killed instantly, but I could not move. My legs were frozen in place from fear.”
Ahmed continued: “I do not know how I managed to escape and leave that place alive. I made it back to the shelter school where I was displaced with my family and swore never to return, even if I starved. I nearly lost my life for a bag of flour, which now costs nearly $500.”
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip struggle with all their might to escape death, which surrounds them. If they are not killed by bombing, they are starved to death. If they try to obtain food, they pay with their lives or the lives of their children for a piece of bread kneaded in blood and terror.
Background
Last May, the Israeli army imposed a deadly aid mechanism through the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Since then, approximately 1,516 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 800 near US aid distribution centres and around 250 near aid convoys. Although these centres have continued to operate for a third consecutive month, they have failed to ease the humanitarian crisis and have instead become an added threat to civilian lives.
While the UN and human rights organisations have warned that this mechanism fails to meet the minimum food needs of over two million people under blockade, it continues to operate in a way that manages starvation rather than ending it. It serves to whitewash Israel’s crimes before the international community, rather than save lives lost daily to starvation or to Israeli army bullets at aid distribution centres.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe
Focus Areas
This article is reproduced in its entirety