The repeated fatal shootings of Palestinians seeking food at distribution centers in Gaza since late May are an outcome of the aid project’s flawed design, which drew enormous crowds and brought them in proximity to Israeli troops, who opened fire on multiple occasions, according to experts in humanitarian aid programs, witness testimony and visual evidence.

Shortly before the centers opened, the United Nations warned in a briefing paper that the model — developed by a group of former U.S. intelligence and defense officials and business executives working in close consultation with Israel — could lead to violence sparked by overcrowding. “Israeli forces or private military security companies may use force to control crowds,” the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

A Washington Post investigation found this occurred at least three times just within the first week of operations, with witnesses saying Israeli troops shot in the direction of crowds.

Since the American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) opened the first of four distribution centers in late May in areas controlled by the Israeli military, Palestinians have been shot in the vicinity of the sites nearly every day, killing more than 400 people and wounding thousands of others, according to U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Post found that this violence was in part the result of ignoring long-established norms for aid distribution in Gaza and the predictable result of dynamics baked into a program that repeatedly culminated, witnesses said, in Israeli forces firing toward crowds.

During the first week of operations, the Israeli military said that it fired warning shots toward “suspects” advancing on soldiers’ positions close to a Rafah distribution center on at least five occasions.

In interviews, 10 witnesses recounted that on May 27, June 1 and June 3, they saw shots fired toward or directly at Palestinian crowds that came from near locations where they had seen Israeli forces, including tanks and drones. Over those days, at least 48 people were dead on arrival at the Red Cross’s field hospital or died shortly afterward, and the facility received about 400 additional people who had been injured, most with gunshot wounds, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it was reviewing reports of incidents in which civilians arriving at the GHF distribution centers were harmed and is working at “minimizing possible friction” between soldiers and the local population.

“As part of this effort, Israeli forces have recently worked to reorganize the area through the installation of fences, signage placement, the opening of additional routes, and other measures,” the military said in its statement. “Following incidents in which harm to civilians who arrived at distribution facilities was reported, thorough examinations were conducted in the Southern Command and instructions were issued to forces in the field following lessons learned.”

The route toward the distribution center that Gazans had been instructed to follow by the GHF, including in Facebook posts, took them within three-quarters of a mile of two military positions visible in satellite imagery and along the same path where witnesses said they had seen tanks. Witness testimony and video evidence show that once gunfire broke out on the three occasions that first week, some people who were following the approved route to the center began running toward it and thus came even closer to the two military positions.

The GHF said that recent violent incidents in Gaza were unrelated to its aid centers and rejected the criticism of “so-called experts,” saying in a statement that they were unfamiliar with the “complexity” of the group’s operations.

Israel has backed the GHF project since late last year, saying that the preexisting system that relied on U.N. agencies and a network of nongovernmental organizations to deliver aid in Gaza needed to be overhauled because, Israeli officials say, Hamas had enriched itself by seizing convoys and reselling goods.

Israel has not provided public proof that Hamas systematically stole aid brought into Gaza under the U.N. system, and despite requests by The Post to officials in the Israeli army, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and the prime minister’s office, no evidence has been provided to substantiate reports of widespread diversion of U.N. food aid.

The U.N.’s efforts to deliver aid in Gaza have been curtailed by Israel. Most of the organization’s aid trucks have been prevented from entering the enclave, which is largely under siege by the Israeli army. Inside Gaza, the U.N. says its activities have been significantly restricted.

Under its model, the GHF operates four distribution centers inside areas of Gaza occupied by the Israeli military. The centers rely on armed American private contractors for security and logistics.

Food is provided on a first-come, first-served basis without any requirement that recipients register. The centers have variable opening times posted on social media the day before.

Since late last year, the plan’s architects have envisioned a role for the Israeli military as well. The planners said that as a condition of deploying resources to Gaza, Israeli forces outside the aid sites’ perimeters would have to target suspected militants with direct fire, according to internal documents reviewed by The Post.

The routing of Palestinians through a militarized landscape was just one of the flaws that experts in humanitarian affairs identified in the GHF design.

“The design, setup, layout, and execution of the distribution all contributed to an environment that increased stress, tension, panic, and hazardous situations for the people receiving the items,” said Alex Davies of the Norwegian Refugee Committee (NRC).

Experts working for U.N. agencies and other aid groups say that the small number of distribution centers, located 1½ miles or more from Palestinian encampment sites, was a recipe for extreme overcrowding and panic. The GHF also didn’t adopt other measures traditionally used by agencies to coordinate the provision of aid and avoid overcrowding and chaos, such as registering recipients, notifying them by text message and other means when to pick up their rations, and using vouchers that identify the timing and quantity of aid for each recipient. Instead, the GHF provided food on a first come, first served basis.

“Unless properly managed, you can easily create confusion, allow for misinformation to spread quickly, and induce panic and fear in the people waiting to receive food,” Davies said. “The biggest fear is that there is not enough for everyone — their survival is at stake.”

The GHF, in its emailed statement, defended the caliber of its operations. “Our team includes very experienced humanitarian experts who designed our model to avoid the pitfalls and failures of UN and other groups whose aid isn’t reaching aid seekers,” the group said.

The organization said that killings have occurred but added, “To date, there has not been a single casualty at or in the surrounding vicinity of any of our sites.” The GHF said: “We continue to experience a growing pattern of false information seemingly formulated by the Gaza Health Ministry, an arm of Hamas, and … echoed by the UN. It is unfortunate that … the UN continue[s] to push false information regarding our operations.”

But one GHF official acknowledged that there has been violence in connection with the operations, saying in an interview that the organization believes the repeated shootings have occurred because there have not been enough aid distribution sites.

The official also said that people have drawn Israeli army fire by trying to take shortcuts to bypass the crowded designated route or arriving before dawn to line up for scarce food packages, only to get lost in the dark and stray toward Israeli military positions.

Desperate crowds

U.N. agencies and many other humanitarian groups operating in Gaza have, over the years, developed procedures designed to provide aid in a regulated and orderly manner.

During a three-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas this year, for example, the U.N.’s World Food Program operated 400 aid stations across the Gaza Strip, often in bakeries, hot-meal centers, and elsewhere. “You avoid the chaos by making sure that there is sufficient aid and lots of locations because people aren’t worrying about getting there firs,t so they don’t miss out,” said one American aid worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak with the press.

Aid recipients have in the past registered for assistance and been notified by text message and through community leaders of where to collect items. Some agencies provided electronic vouchers, for instance using cellphone e-wallets, entitling the recipient to obtain a certain amount of supplies based on their family’s need.

“Because the level of need has consistently been high, to mitigate the problem of crowd control, to mitigate what you’re seeing … a lot of organizations … were using smaller, community-level distributions,” said Ann Marie McKenzie, a humanitarian expert with a decade of experience, including in Gaza.

The GHF’s approach diverged from these standard practices, according to humanitarian experts.

“You cannot manage that with that many people who are starving to death … and that [overcrowding] was very foreseeable,” said another expert in aid distribution, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for their family’s safety.

In its statement, the GHF rejected this criticism, alleging that the U.N. and other humanitarian groups have failed to deliver aid to Gazans and citing the looting of aid trucks as proof. “GHF is the only one who is delivering aid directly to the Palestinian people. If the UN and others would collaborate with us, we could scale up operations,” the organization said.

In response, Olga Cherevko, a U.N. spokeswoman in Gaza, said her organization will not be part of any program “that contravenes humanitarian principles. Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe.”

Source: Washington Post