By Palestine Chronicle Staff
May 28, 2025
The events unfolded just hours after the American company, named the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began distributing aid as part of a joint Israeli-American plan.
An American company operating in coordination with the Israeli army lost control of an aid distribution center in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Tuesday, after large crowds of Palestinians rushed the site. Israeli forces opened fire when the situation escalated, injuring several people.
According to Israel Hayom, Israeli soldiers fired into the air and called in helicopters to evacuate the American company’s personnel.
A breach in the center’s fencing allowed Palestinians to pour in, and some equipment was seized, reported the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation. Yedioth Ahronoth also noted that the company’s armed guards fled the scene due to the overwhelming crowds.
Israel’s Channel 13 confirmed that the army extracted the company’s staff from the site, while Channel 12 described a scene of “severe overcrowding,” during which people seized aid supplies, furniture, and any available items.
Footage from a US security officer’s bodycam today shows scenes from the aid distribution center in southern Gaza. pic.twitter.com/wnnp06wtoE
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) May 27, 2025
‘A Humanitarian Failure’
Ismail Thawabta, Director-General of the Government Media Office in Gaza, condemned the Israeli response and held the occupation fully responsible for the incident. He described it as a “disastrous failure,” stating that Israeli forces opened fire on civilians, wounding several.
Thawabta said the attempt to distribute aid in so-called “buffer zones” had failed, calling it a deliberate effort by the occupation to manage — and worsen — the humanitarian crisis it had created through siege, starvation, and bombing. He emphasized that desperate, starving civilians — deprived of food and medicine for nearly 90 days — stormed the aid center in scenes of “tragedy and despair.”
The Government Media Office reiterated its rejection of Israeli-supervised “buffer zones” and “humanitarian corridors,” asserting that these mechanisms are being used as tools of political blackmail.
Thawabta condemned the weaponization of humanitarian aid and criticized Israel’s continued prevention of official UN and NGO aid deliveries through established crossings.
Journalist Shihab Rattansi reports that the recently approved U.S.-Israeli aid distribution plan for Gaza appears designed to serve Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing agenda.
Under the plan, 2.4 million Palestinians would be forced to head to the farthest south of the region, close… pic.twitter.com/YxXqMZZED5
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 27, 2025
US-Israeli Aid Plan Rejected
The events unfolded just hours after the American company, named the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began distributing aid as part of a joint Israeli-American plan.
This initiative has been rejected by the United Nations and numerous humanitarian organizations, who argue it displaces civilians, puts lives at risk, and politicizes aid delivery.
Axios cited the company saying that “a very large number” of Palestinians had come to receive aid, prompting their team to withdraw from the area due to the chaos.
The National Gathering of Palestinian Tribes, Clans, and Families in Gaza issued a statement warning that the chaotic scenes confirmed the Israeli mechanism’s true intent: to use aid as a military and political tool.
The group said that even the arrest of a Palestinian at the site proves the aid mechanism is designed to deceive, manipulate, and militarize humanitarian efforts.
Stolen Aid
Ramy Abdu, Director of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, revealed that the aid distributed in Rafah had originally belonged to Rahma International Foundation. According to Abdu, the American company and the Israeli army misled the organization and confiscated its trucks to use them in their own politically motivated aid program.
The Government Media Office echoed this accusation, stating that the American company — backed by Israeli forces — had taken possession of several aid trucks from an international NGO under false pretenses.
These trucks were later transferred to the American-operated center in the buffer zone, where the aid was distributed under military supervision to civilians weakened by famine and siege. (PC, AJA)
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