On Tuesday, the National Gathering of Palestinians Tribes, Clans, and Families convened a meeting in Gaza City to launch the initiative. “These trucks arriving in besieged Gaza—which has been starved for 90 days by our enemy—must reach their rightful recipients, the needy,” said Abu Salman al-Mughni, a tribal leader. “They must not go to a corrupt group of thieves and rogue merchants to be sold in the markets at exorbitant prices that no one can afford. For this reason, the tribes, from all factions, have united to secure these trucks, ensuring they reach the warehouses and are then distributed fairly to all our people.”
The effort succeeded in securing a rare shipment of dozens of UN aid trucks that entered through the Zikim crossing on Wednesday; passed through Rashid street, a coastal road, without incident; and arrived at UN warehouses where people lined up to receive the aid. The tribes and community leaders prevented crowds from approaching the area the trucks passed through by erecting a series of barricades and forming human chains. Men associated with the tribes climbed atop the trucks—some armed with rods and others with guns—to escort the trucks to the warehouses.
The process stood in stark contrast to previous scenes where, absent any distribution system, thousands of desperate people overwhelmed aid convoys, with Israeli soldiers opening fire indiscriminately, killing dozens of Palestinians on a daily basis.
“We advise everyone to take a firm stand with their sons and youth to prevent them from heading to the death traps,” Abu Samed Abu Rawaa, another tribal leader involved in the effort, told Drop Site. “We are the protective shield. Everyone must understand that it is the occupier who seeks to spread chaos—they are the ones who want our people to appear this way…to portray our people as barbaric.”
The most prominent figure in Gaza accused of looting aid trucks is Yasser Abu Shabab, a 32-year-old who was previously jailed in Gaza for drug trafficking. Abu Shabab is now the head of a powerful group called the “Anti-Terror Service” that is armed by the Israeli military and has been widely accused of looting aid convoys.
In their remarks, tribal and clan leaders singled Abu Shabab out by name, warning that anyone associated with him would be dealt with harshly. “[Israel] propped up that disgraced and condemned Abu Shabab in order to spread corruption in the land,” Dr. Alaa El-Din Al-Aklouk, a leading member of the National Gathering of Palestinian Tribes, Clans and Families, said. “Some of our sons and family members join Abu Shabab and run around in order to recruit people. You men must advise your sons and youth to stay away from this filthy germ created by the occupation.” Echoing comments by Israeli officials, Shabab has blamed Hamas for looting aid trucks without providing any evidence—a claim that both the UN and international organizations have also denied.
Hours after the tribal and community-led initiative to secure the aid convoys was launched on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement accusing Hamas of stealing the aid and ordered the Israeli military to prevent it.
In response, the Government Media Office in Gaza said the Israeli government was “promoting lies” in order to “legitimize the continued blockade, starvation, and the prevention of humanitarian aid.”
“This tragedy is for whom?”
Israel imposed a full-spectrum siege on Gaza on March 2, with no food, medical supplies, fuel, or other humanitarian goods allowed to enter for nearly three months—the longest total blockade since Israel’s genocidal assault began. The Israeli siege brought the entire population of Gaza to the brink of famine, with malnourished children dying of hunger.
On May 27, the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began distributing a trickle of aid through four militarized distribution hubs, three in remote parts of southern Gaza and one near Wadi Gaza. The project was condemned by the U.N. and international organizations—which previously led aid distribution in Gaza—as a weaponization of aid. The scheme forced thousands of desperate Palestinians to walk for hours over long distances through Israeli military zones to reach the hubs. Separate from the GHF system, a small number of U.N. aid trucks, mostly carrying flour, has also sporadically been allowed in. The total amount of aid being distributed is not nearly enough to stave off mass starvation, according to the U.N.
Israeli troops have shot at, shelled, and attacked the crowds with tanks and quadcopters on a daily basis both at, or near, the GHF hubs, and as they gathered near the UN aid trucks. Over the past four weeks, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and over 4,066 injured, according to the Gaza health ministry, in what are now commonly called “aid massacres.”
Meanwhile, the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF) labeled the GHF aid distribution scheme “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid” and called for it to be “immediately dismantled.” The group said in a statement on Friday that the GHF “is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies.”
Last week, the White House and State Department authorized a $30 million USAID grant to the GHF, with possible additional grants of $30 million that could be dispersed on a monthly basis.
The executive chairman of the GHF, Johnnie Moore—an evangelical Christian and a former Trump adviser—has rejected all criticism of the GHF and echoed Israeli talking points that deny the mass killing of civilians by Israeli troops at, or near, GHF hubs. “The US endorsement of the effort is Exhibit A that it is actually working, despite a disinformation campaign that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts,” Moore said in a televised interview on Sky News on Friday. “The IDF is a professionalized military. Hamas is intentionally harming people for the purpose of defaming what we’re doing.”
His comments came despite revelations published by Haaretz on Friday that confirmed what Palestinians in Gaza have been saying for the past four weeks—that Israeli soldiers are opening fire on unarmed Palestinians gathering near food distribution sites, even when they posed no threat. In the report, soldiers said Israeli commanders instructed troops to shoot at civilians approaching aid sites before they opened or after they closed—using machine guns, mortars, and grenades. Soldiers described systematic live fire, including from tanks and said the killings weren’t isolated mistakes but part of a pattern dubbed “Operation Salted Fish”—the Israeli version of Red Light, Green Light. “We shoot, they run, we shoot again,” one soldier said. “This is our communication.”
The association of tribal and community leaders have said they will continue their efforts to protect and organize the limited amount of aid that is being allowed into Gaza. “We pledge to stand by our people during this unjust siege,” al-Mughni said. “Every day, we are losing 40 or 50 martyrs. This tragedy is for whom? And at what cost? We must put an end to this destructive phenomenon.”
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