A former US Army Special Forces officer, who resigned from his role at the controversial Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) last month, has said that an emaciated child was shot dead by Israeli forces moments after receiving aid.
Anthony Aguilar told the UnXeptable podcast on Monday that he saw Israeli forces kill the young boy, named Amir, and countless others while he was manning a GHF aid distribution point in southern Gaza on 28 May.
“This young boy, Amir, walked up to me, barefoot and wearing tattered clothes that hung off his emaciated body,” Aguilar said.
“He walked 12km to get there, and when he got there, he thanked us for the remnants and the small crumbs that he got.
“He set them down on the ground, because I was kneeling at this point, and he sets his food down, and he places his hands on my face, on the side of my face, on my cheeks, these frail, skeleton, emaciated hands – dirty – and he puts them on my face, and he kissed me.
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“He kissed me, and he said thank you in English, thank you. And he collected his items, and he walked back to the group,” he said.
“Then he was shot at with pepper spray, tear gas, stun grenades and bullets shot at his feet [and then] in the air, and he runs away scared, and the IDF [Israeli army] were shooting at the crowd.
“They’re shooting into this crowd and Palestinians – civilians, human beings – are dropping to the ground, getting shot. And Amir was one of them.”
According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to access food in Gaza since the controversial GHF began operations in late May.
Last month, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza, Yousef al-Ajouri, told Middle East Eye that trying to collect food for his family could be compared to the TV show Squid Game, in which killing was entertainment.
Israeli troops have admitted to deliberately shooting and killing unarmed Palestinians waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip, following direct orders from their superiors.
‘They’re not animals, they’re human beings’
Last week, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa), called the mass starvation in Gaza “constructed and deliberate”.
In a statement, he said that GHF’s flawed distribution system is not designed to address the humanitarian crisis.
“It’s serving military and political objectives. It’s cruel as it takes more lives than it saves lives. Israel controls all aspects of humanitarian access, whether outside or within Gaza.”
‘We treat these civilians in Gaza worse, with less dignity, than we treated the ISIS fighters that surrendered in Baghouz in Syria’
– Anthony Aguilar, former US contractor
He also said that airdrops – which Israel had approved – were “the most expensive and inefficient way to deliver aid”.
“It is a distraction to the inaction,” he added.
Israel, which rejects the criticism, has instead accused Hamas of stealing aid and says its blockade on the entry of food is partly aimed at preventing the group from diverting supplies.
In Monday’s podcast, Aguilar condemned what he called the dehumanisation of Palestinians.
“What I want to say to the American people and to the people of Israel is that I’ve been there, I’ve touched them, I’ve talked to them. These civilians in Gaza that are getting the food, they’re starving. They’re not animals, they’re human beings, and they’re being treated like animals.
“We treat these civilians in Gaza worse, with less dignity, than we treated the ISIS fighters that surrendered in Baghouz in Syria.”
Famine thresholds have been reached
On Tuesday, a UN-backed global food security body said famine was unfolding across Gaza, with one in three children in Gaza City acutely malnourished.
“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,” the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said in a new report.
Starvation in Gaza: Dizziness, fatigue and people collapsing in the streets
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“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.”
The warning comes as nearly 150 Palestinian children and adults in Gaza have succumbed to death from starvation since Israel’s onslaught on Gaza in October 2023.
The blockade on the Palestinian enclave has fluctuated in intensity, but since 2 March, Israel has prevented all food and aid from reaching starving Palestinians.
Last week, more than 100 international human rights and humanitarian organisations called for an end to the siege, citing widespread starvation affecting their staff.
Unrwa communications director Juliette Touma also told MEE last week that several of the organisation’s staff fainted on duty due to malnutrition.
More than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s war on Gaza, which several countries, as well as many international rights groups and experts, now qualify as genocide.
