MSF official says Palestinians have no choice but to risk their lives in ‘desperate search for food’.
Israel is “engineering chaos and massacres” in the Gaza Strip by continuing to block aid deliveries and opening fire on starving Palestinians seeking desperately needed food supplies, a humanitarian official has warned.
Caroline Willemen, Gaza project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, told media on Friday that food remains “critically scarce” in the besieged enclave despite the increased entry of aid in recent days.
“There is little indication that sufficient aid will arrive consistently,” Willemen said. “As a result, every day, people risk their lives in a desperate search for food.”
The Gaza Health Ministry said on Friday that three more people, including two children, died of hunger and malnutrition in the previous 24 hours.
That pushed the total number of starvation-related deaths to 162, including 92 children, since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.
More than 80 Palestinians were also killed in Israeli strikes across the Strip on Friday, medical sources told media. Of those, 49 people were killed and more than 270 others were wounded while seeking aid, the sources said.
Condemnation of Israel’s starvation policy in Gaza has grown this week, with a global hunger monitoring system warning on Tuesday that the “worst-case scenario of famine” was unfolding.
While Israel has authorised a series of aid airdrops in recent days, top United Nations officials have denounced the scheme as expensive and dangerous while urging Israel to allow unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza.
“If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), wrote on X.
“As the people of #Gaza are starving to death, the only way to respond to the famine is to flood Gaza with assistance.”
Olga Cherevko, an official with the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA), also told media from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza that while there has been a slight increase in aid being allowed in, it is still grossly insufficient.
“The slight increase in what is coming in is not nearly enough to even scratch the surface,” she said. “The needs on the ground are overwhelming.”
‘Deadly incidents a daily reality’
Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza continue to risk their lives by seeking aid at notorious sites run by the United States- and Israeli-backed GHF.
Ibrahim Mekki, a Palestinian man from Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, said he waited at least six hours and risked being shot by Israeli forces just to end up with a few bags of pasta.
“It’s a trap, a game,” he told media. “Letting you move a little, then opening fire.”
The UN’s human rights office reported that at least 1,373 aid seekers have been killed in Gaza since May, when the GHF began operating in the enclave.
Of those, 859 people were killed near GHF-run aid sites and 514 were killed while waiting along food convoy routes, the office said. “Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,” it added.
MSF’s Willemen also recounted a harrowing incident from earlier this week, when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians attempting to reach aid trucks near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza.
“People were wounded in the gunfire and in the crush as crowds panicked and ran,” she said.
“These deadly incidents have become a daily reality in Gaza for too long now. The current methods of distribution are engineering chaos and massacres.”
Still, Israel and its top ally, the US, have continued to support GHF despite the killings and growing global criticism of the group’s operations in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, also visited the enclave on Friday alongside US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to “assess conditions” and engage with GHF.
Witkoff said the trip aimed to help “craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza”.
The Trump administration announced last month that it approved $30m to support GHF’s operations.
The US provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel annually, as well as diplomatic backing at the UN – assistance that has increased significantly since the start of the war on Gaza.
