The Gaza Hunger Games

Originally published on Author's Substack on June 29, 2025

Israel's use of famine as a weapon is how all genocides end. I covered the insidious effects of the orchestrated famine in the Guatemalan Highlands during General Efraín Ríos Montt's genocidal campaign, the famine in southern Sudan that left a quarter of a million dead—I walked alongside the frail, skeletal bodies of families along the roads—and later, during the war in Bosnia, when the Serbs cut off food supplies to enclaves like Srebrenica and Goražde.

Hunger was used as a weapon by the Ottoman Empire to decimate the Armenians. It was used to kill millions of Ukrainians in the Holodomor in 1932 and 1933. It was employed by the Nazis against Jews in the ghettos during World War II. German soldiers used food, as Israel does, as bait. They offered three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of jam to lure desperate families in the Warsaw Ghetto into transport to extermination camps. “There were times when hundreds of people had to wait in line for several days to be ‘deported’,” writes Marek Edelman in [his work]. The Ghetto Fights"The number of people eager to obtain the three kilograms of bread was such that the transports, now departing twice a day with 12 people, could not accommodate them all." And when the crowds became turbulent, as in Gaza, German soldiers fired deadly bursts of gunfire that pierced the emaciated bodies of women, children, and the elderly.

This tactic is as old as war itself.

The story in the Israeli newspaper HaaretzThe fact that Israeli soldiers are being ordered to fire on crowds of Palestinians at aid distribution points, with 580 dead and 4.216 wounded, is no surprise. It is the predictable outcome of the genocide, the inevitable conclusion of a campaign of mass extermination.

Israel, with its targeted killings of at least 1.400 healthcare professionals, hundreds of United Nations (UN) workers, journalists, police officers, and even poets and academics; its destruction of multi-story apartment blocks that wipe out dozens of families; its bombing of designated “humanitarian zones” where Palestinians crowd into tents, tarpaulins, or the open air; its systematic targeting of UN food distribution centers, bakeries, and aid convoys; or its sadistic sniper fire targeting children, has long made it clear that Palestinians are considered vermin worthy only of annihilation.

The blockade of food and humanitarian aid, imposed on Gaza since March 2nd, is reducing Palestinians to the most abject dependency. To eat, they must crawl towards their murderers and beg. Humiliated, terrified, desperate for a few crumbs of food, they are stripped of dignity, autonomy, and agency. This is intentional.

Yousef al-Ajouri, 40 years old, reported to Middle East Eye Their nightmarish journey to one of the four aid distribution centers set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). These centers were not designed to meet the needs of Palestinians, who previously relied on 400 aid distribution points, but to lure them from northern Gaza to the south. Israel, which on Sunday again ordered Palestinians to leave northern Gaza, is gradually expanding its annexation of the coastal strip. Palestinians are confined like cattle in narrow metal corridors at the distribution points, overseen by heavily armed mercenaries. They receive, if they are among the lucky few, a small box of food.

Al-Ajouri, who was a taxi driver before the genocide, lives with his wife, seven children, mother, and father in a tent in al-Saraya, near the center of Gaza City. He set out toward an aid center on Salah al-Din Road, near the Netzarim corridor, to find food for his children, who, according to him, cry constantly “because of hunger.” Following the advice of a tent neighbor, he wore loose clothing “so that I could run and be agile.” He carried a bag for canned and packaged food because the crush of the crowd made it impossible “to carry the boxes in which the aid came.”

He left around 21 p.m. with five other men — “including an engineer and a teacher” — and “children aged 10 and 12.” They did not follow the official route designated by the Israeli army. The massive crowds converging along the official route mean that most never manage to get close enough to receive food. Instead, they walked in the darkness through areas exposed to Israeli fire, often having to crawl to avoid being seen.

“As I crawled, I looked around and, to my surprise, saw several women and elderly people following the same treacherous path as us,” he recounted. “At one point, a burst of live gunfire erupted around me. We took cover behind a destroyed building. Anyone who moved or made any perceptible movement was immediately targeted by gunmen. Next to me was a tall, fair-haired young man, using his cell phone flashlight to guide himself. The others yelled at him to turn it off. Seconds later, he was shot. He fell to the ground and lay there bleeding, but no one could help him or move him. He died within minutes.”

He passed six bodies along the way, all shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

Al-Ajouri arrived at the center at 2 a.m., the designated time for distribution. He saw a green light illuminated in front of him, signaling that the aid was about to be distributed. Thousands began rushing toward the light, pushing and shoving. He struggled to push his way through the crowd to reach the aid.

“I started feeling around the boxes and grabbed a bag that looked like rice,” he said. “But, at that same instant, someone snatched it from my hand. I tried to hold on, but he threatened to stab me. Most people carried knives, either to defend themselves or to steal from others. I managed to grab four cans of beans, a kilo of bulgur wheat, and half a kilo of pasta. In moments, the boxes were empty. Most people there, including women, children, and the elderly, got nothing. Some begged others to share. But nobody could afford to give away the little they had managed to get.”

The US contractors and Israeli soldiers overseeing the chaos laughed and pointed their weapons at the crowd. Some filmed with their cell phones.

“Minutes later, red smoke grenades were launched into the air,” he recalled. “Someone told me that was the signal to evacuate the area. After that, heavy gunfire began. Khalil, a few others, and I went to al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat because our friend Wael had injured his hand during the journey. I was shocked by what I saw at the hospital. There were at least 35 dead martyrs on the floor of one of the rooms. A doctor told me that they had all been brought there that same day. Each one had been shot in the head or chest while waiting in line near the aid center. Their families were waiting for them at home with food. Now, they were corpses.”

The GHF is a creation of Mossad, funded by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which contracts UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions, commanded by former members of the CIA and US Special Forces. The GHF is headed by Reverend Johnnie Moore, a far-right Zionist Christian with close ties to Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. The organization has also hired anti-Hamas drug trafficking gangs to provide security at aid centers.

As Chris Gunness, former spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said to Al JazeeraGHF is practicingaid washing"— a way of masking the reality that 'people are being driven into submission by hunger'."

Israel, along with the US and European countries that supply weapons to sustain the genocide, chose to ignore the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling of January 2024, which demanded immediate protection for civilians in Gaza and widespread provision of humanitarian aid.

The Israeli newspaper HaaretzIn an article titled “'It’s a Killing Camp,' reports: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Deliberately Shoot Unarmed Palestinians Awaiting Humanitarian Aid,” the article states that Israeli commanders order soldiers to open fire on crowds to drive them away from aid centers or disperse them. “The distribution centers typically open for only one hour each morning,” the article writes. Haaretz“According to officers and soldiers who served in these areas, the IDF shoots people who arrive before opening to prevent them from approaching, or again after closing to disperse them. As some of the shootings occurred at night — before opening — it is possible that some civilians were unable to see the boundaries of the designated area.” “It’s a killing field,” one soldier told [the newspaper]. Haaretz“Where I was, between one and five people were killed a day. They are treated as a hostile force — no crowd control measures, no tear gas — just live fire with everything: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. So, when the center opens, the shooting stops and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.” “We shoot early if someone tries to get in line a few meters away, and sometimes we just advance on them at close range. But there is no danger to the military forces,” the soldier explained. “I don’t know of a single case of an exchange of fire. There is no enemy, no weapons.” He said the operation in the aid centers is known as “Operation Salted Fish,” a reference to the Israeli name of the children’s game “Red light, green lightThe game was depicted in the first episode of the South Korean dystopian thriller. Round 6, in which financially desperate people are killed while fighting each other for money.

Israel has annihilated the civilian and humanitarian infrastructure in Gaza. It has reduced the Palestinians—half a million of whom face famine—to desperate herds. The goal is to break the Palestinians, make them malleable, and induce them to leave Gaza never to return.

There are talks coming from the Trump White House about a ceasefire. But don't be fooled. Israel has nothing left to destroy. Its 20 months of saturation bombing have reduced Gaza to a lunar landscape. Gaza is uninhabitable, a toxic wasteland where Palestinians, living among broken concrete blocks and pools of sewage, have no food, no drinking water, no fuel, no shelter, no electricity, no medicine, and no infrastructure to survive. The last obstacle to the annexation of Gaza is the Palestinians themselves. They are the primary target. Starvation is the weapon of choice.