Israel is targeting Palestinians’ slim means of accessing food, bombing two makeshift kitchens and UNRWA’s distribution center in Jabalia in the past few days
by Hamza M.Salha and Sharif Abdel Kouddous
May 11, 2025
JABALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, GAZA—It was just after sunset on Friday when an Israeli missile slammed into an UNRWA building in the middle of Jabaliya refugee camp in north Gaza, killing four people—including a child, according to eyewitnesses—and severely damaging a food distribution center, warehouse, and health center run by the UN refugee agency.
“The entire area was destroyed and turned to rubble,” Al Moatassem Shalayel, 20, who had left the area moments before, told Drop Site. Shalayel’s 45-year-old uncle, Ehab Abu Hussein, was killed in the bombing. “We’re gathering his belongings, like his prayer beads and his cap. His body was torn apart, but we want to keep any memory of him.” Shalayel lost multiple family members over the course of the war. “I don’t have any uncles or aunts left now, only my grandmother,” he said.
Soon afterwards, the Israeli military spokesperson said they attacked Jabaliya using aerial surveillance and precision munitions.
“Everything was shut down and bombed. It’s all gone now, completely destroyed,” Shalayel added. “[Israel’s goal] is to starve and suffocate the people. Their aim is to keep us from eating or drinking. They just want to leave us hungry.”
The May 9 attack on the UN distribution center came as part of Israel’s scorched-earth bombing campaign that resumed in full force on March 18 following a brief “ceasefire.” Since then, Israel has targeted charity kitchens, displacement camps, schools, hospitals, so-called “humanitarian zones,” and other civilian gatherings on a regular basis. On Saturday alone, Israeli airstrikes bombed two tents used for preparing food in Khan Younis and Gaza City.
Over 2,700 Palestinians have been killed over the past seven weeks, including more than 900 children, according to the Gaza health ministry. The official death toll since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal assault is nearly 53,000, with many thousands more missing under the rubble.
Israel has also imposed a full spectrum blockade on Gaza since March 2, denying entry to all food, medicine, fuel, and other basic supplies in a policy of forced starvation and collective punishment—now in its third month. Thousands of Palestinians are suffering from acute malnutrition, including thousands of children, as Gaza has been plunged into the worst humanitarian crisis since the war began.
Aid organizations have stopped food distribution and bakeries have closed. Over the past several days, a third of UN-supported community kitchens—which are a last lifeline for much of the population—have shut down due to the depletion in food supplies and limited access to fuel. “We live off charity kitchens. Every day, they bring us lentils, they’re exhausting us with lentils,” Tala Ghassan Al-Masri, 13, who survived Friday’s bombing in Jabaliya, told Drop Site. “I wish I could eat bread, fried potatoes, tomatoes, and things my sister and mom used to make for us.”
Markets are almost empty and prices for basic items like flour or vegetables have skyrocketed. Nine-year-old Hala al-Ghandour was in a nearby market in Jabaliya on Friday when the Israeli airstrike hit the UNRWA building. “I heard a loud sound and saw a flash and an explosion,” she said. “I was coming to buy one tomato and one cucumber. Everything is expensive, and we can’t afford much.”
Last week, Israel’s security cabinet reportedly approved a plan to further escalate its military offensive on Gaza and proposed a plan to deliver limited quantities of aid under severe restrictions—establishing militarized zones inside of Gaza where private contractors, potentially including those from a U.S. company, would distribute food through a process that includes highly restrictive security vetting and calorie-controlled quantities. Fifteen UN bodies and over 200 NGOs denounced the plan in a joint statement.
“This plan seems designed to reinforce Israeli control over life-saving supplies and it’s a plan that will force people into military zones—completely putting them at risk in order for them to collect aid,” UNRWA spokesperson Tamara Alrifai told Drop Site. Alrifai said the plan not only runs “counter to humanitarian principles” but also it is “logistically unworkable.”
The plan proposes to allow the entry of sixty trucks of supplies per day, far below the minimum of at least 500 trucks a day that the UN says is required. “This is an attempt to impose an alternative to an internationally recognized humanitarian, multilateral system led by the UN that includes other humanitarian organizations. There is a whole ecosystem for the conduct and delivery of humanitarian assistance in emergencies that works, and this plan seeks to completely ignore that system and replace it,” she said. “This plan will endanger the lives of civilians, since they’re going to be ‘allowed’—but in reality, forced—to go to Israeli designated distribution hubs in the south during continued bombing and hostilities.”
The Trump administration also appears to be moving ahead with its own plan for aid distribution, which would be spearheaded by a newly created non-governmental “foundation” and involve private security contractors, former U.S. military officers, and humanitarian aid officials. President Trump is scheduled to visit the region this coming week, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Israel’s continued siege and bombardment has also severely limited Palestinians’ access to water in Gaza. On Saturday, the Palestinian Water Authority issued a statement that the destruction of infrastructure and prevention of entry of fuel have led to a near total halt in water service provision, describing Gaza as “a region dying of thirst.” About 75 per cent of households reported deteriorating access to water over the past month, according to UNICEF, with acute watery diarrhea now accounting for a quarter of disease cases recorded in Gaza.
In Jabaliya, as in other areas, sewage networks have been destroyed or lack fuel to operate, leading to widespread sewage flowing in the streets and growing infestation of rodents and insects in overcrowded displacement shelters, according to the Jabaliya municipal officials.
“My message to the world is that we want this war to end, we want life to go back to normal,” Shalayel said. “We want to see good days in whatever is left of our lives. That’s all.”
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