War With Iran Does Not Interrupt Israeli Genocide in Gaza

Gaza | As global media attention wanes, the Israeli military continues to pursue policies aimed at dismantling Gaza’s social fabric. Through the deliberate use of hunger and the chaotic distribution of humanitarian aid, it has fostered conditions that force society to collapse into mere survival.

In northwestern Gaza, tens of thousands of displaced people make long journeys on foot to wait by the roadside for aid trucks entering through the Zikim crossing, bound for al-Tawam and al-Karama neighborhoods. Many spend the night outdoors, hoping to secure a bag of flour or a basic food package. Each day, dozens of desperate civilians are killed in the process. Trampled in overcrowded crowds, run over by trucks, or struck by Israeli artillery fire. The Israeli military justifies the attacks by claiming the victims posed a threat by approaching troop positions.

A source at a transport company involved in aid delivery told Al-Akhbar that the Israeli army designates fixed routes for trucks, warning that any deviation could trigger a strike. “We’re instructed to stop with our cargo near red zones where Israeli forces are stationed,” a driver said. “We’re barred from using safer routes to reach World Food Programme warehouses and prohibited from coordinating with the Interior Ministry or private security firms.” He added, “We’re even told to inform civilians of our arrival so the aid can be looted in chaos. The UN jeeps escorting us actually urge people to loot the trucks.”

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Similar scenes occur at US-backed aid distribution sites in Rafah and along the Netzarim corridor. Every day, large crowds gather, only to find a few hundred food parcels behind the gates. The Abu Shabab gang often takes control of the aid, leaving the majority empty-handed. Israeli snipers and shelling continues killing civilians, with the military again citing security concerns. On Sunday, the Gaza Health Ministry reported 56 martyrs, 38 of whom were killed while waiting for aid in the al-Tawam area of Beit Lahia.

The new aid distribution mechanism has effectively become a daily death trap. On a broader societal level, the Israeli army is pursuing a set of objectives, some already achieved, which include: dismantling the civil presence of the Hamas-led government by stripping it of its key role in organizing aid, long essential to internal stability; undermining the operations of all UN agencies in Gaza; eliminating the core functions of UNRWA; fostering chaos and eroding moral structures by normalizing a culture of force and domination; expanding the role of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to pave the way for the militarization of aid; and creating new centers of commercial control by enabling select merchants to dominate the market through a policy of engineered scarcity followed by controlled entry of goods.

In contrast to all this, recent days have seen a growing presence of the Sahm Unit from Gaza’s Ministry of Interior. Its members have taken advantage of the reduced presence of surveillance drones to help restore security by carrying out dozens of arrests and pursuing collaborators and instigators of unrest. As a result, incidents of theft and thuggery have noticeably declined.

This is an edited translation of an article originally published in Arabic.

(Al-Akhbar) by Youssef Fares