Palestinians transport victims to a Red Cross clinic in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after they were shot as they waited to receive food parcels at a distribution point on July 12, 2025. ( Photo: AFP )
Rafah, July 13 (RHC)-- At least 30 Palestinians were killed on Saturday when Israeli forces opened fire on desperate families waiting for food at Gaza’s last remaining U.S.-backed aid distribution center in the southern city of Rafah, according to medical sources. More than 130 others were reportedly wounded and transported to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
Families from northern Gaza have been making the perilous journey south in hopes of receiving aid at the only functioning distribution point in Rafah, but they have encountered chaos, long waits, and indiscriminate shooting by Israeli forces.
The controversial U.S.-backed program of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been tasked by the Israeli regime and the US to distribute aid in Gaza since late May.
Hundreds of Palestinians have lost their lives in the weeks since GHF began its “dehumanizing, militarized ‘distribution hubs’ in coordination with Israeli forces,” stated Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), remarked earlier this month that the program “provides nothing but starvation and gunfire to the people of Gaza.”
More than 230 NGOs — including Amnesty International, Oxfam International, Save the Children, and the Norwegian Refugee Council — have signed an open letter denouncing the GHF and calling for a return to the UN-led aid delivery model.
While the UN previously operated over 400 aid centers across Gaza, GHF initially set up just four for a population of 2.1 million.
Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, has said that it is “immoral and inhuman when those committing the genocide take responsibility to feed those whom they have starved.”
[ SOURCE: PRESS TV and NEWS AGENCIES ]
