Aerial footage showing thousands of Palestinians crowded into narrow, fenced lanes while awaiting humanitarian aid in Gaza surfaced on Tuesday, igniting a firestorm of controversy across social media platforms, with many users drawing disturbing parallels to scenes from Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.
– Background –
An American, “Israeli”-backed organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) became the scene of chaos on Tuesday after thousands of Palestinians, many of them hungry and displaced, rushed the facility in search of food. GHF, a relatively unknown group, has recently taken over aid distribution outside the long-established UN system.
A photo from the aid distribution surfaced, depicting long queues of men, women, and children packed tightly into metal corridors with barbed fences under the hot sun, awaiting the distribution of food and basic supplies. The stark imagery—corridors of metal fencing, the lack of overhead cover, and the overwhelming density of human bodies—has triggered international condemnation and widespread outrage.
According to the UN, at least 47 people were injured in the stampede. A Palestinian medical source confirmed one fatality.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said most of the injuries resulted from gunfire. “It was shooting from the IDF,” Sunghay stated, referring to the “Israeli” military.
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) denied responsibility. Speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Colonel Olivier Rafowicz claimed that soldiers only “fired warning shots into the air, in the area outside” the GHF center. He insisted that “in no case” did the IOF fire at civilians.
The GHF has drawn scrutiny for its opaque operations and for bypassing coordination with major international aid organizations, including the UN. Critics argue this has led to disorganized and unsafe distribution efforts, compounding the suffering of civilians already facing severe food shortages.
