First they entered one after the other in a line along the path protected by high metal fences, inside a basin of yellow earth dug up by military bulldozers. The first images from Tel Sultan to Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, showed men of all ages returning in an orderly fashion with cardboard packages on their shoulders. Someone in a video even shouted "Long live America". A few hours later, the announcement came that the humanitarian aid distribution site managed by the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)", opened for the first time on Tuesday, would close at 5:30 p.m. The crowd waiting outside, and even before that at the Hamas checkpoints to prevent them from reaching the center, refused to go back empty-handed. Hundreds of people, young people, women veiled in black from head to toe, children, and elderly people began to run towards the tables where the food was piled up in boxes, knocking down the barriers.

Chaos suddenly erupted, a mass of bodies rushing toward the aid they had been waiting for since March 2. When the Israeli government closed the crossings to the Strip, claiming that the 25,000 trucks that had entered in two months of truce were enough for quite a while. The security guards of the American company that supervises the deliveries fled to avoid being overwhelmed. Further away, beyond the fence, American operators fired shots into the air.

Hamas media quickly jumped on the bandwagon, first reporting scenes of the stampede and mocking the new aid mechanism, backed by Israel and the United States, describing the center as already destroyed, with IDF helicopters shooting from above. Later, the army spokesman firmly denied "the report released by Hamas: the IDF did not shoot from above at the distribution center," he said.

The American company tried to downplay the situation by declaring that the crowd was allowed to take the food parcels. Then, the confusion subsided, the center announced its opening hours for tomorrow. The UN intervened by calling the images of the displaced looking for food "heartbreaking": "We have seen these videos, people desperate to receive aid in these conditions" that the United Nations considers in contradiction with humanitarian principles. Words that the US responded by saying: they are "the height of hypocrisy", said the spokeswoman for the US State Department, Tammy Bruce, while the head of Cogat, the Israeli coordination for aid to the Strip, denounced that "over 400 trucks of humanitarian aid are waiting to be immediately collected by the UN at the Kerem Shalom crossing". The official, Rassan Alyan, accused the United Nations of having failed to do its duty in recent days and of "continuing instead to spread incorrect and misleading information about the humanitarian difficulties".

(Online Union)

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