Despair of families watching attacks on Gaza food aid sites

The attack began at 9pm last Thursday. Ibrahim al-Qattrawi pushed his face into the dirt, waiting for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) food distribution point to open, while Israeli quadcopters circled overhead. Bullets and artillery shells tore through the air around him.

- Oliver Marsden

An hour later, Al-Qattrawi, 21, sprinted towards the aid station, along the Netzarim corridor - an Israeli military zone that now divides Gaza.

“When we got to the distribution point, there was only enough aid for 5% of those who came,” he told The Observer.

As the world’s attention has shifted to Iran and Israel, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has deepened. Al-Qattrawi estimates that each day 30,000 people gatherat the aid site. Netzarim is one of four sites run by GHF, the controversial distribu-

tion group backed by Israel and the US. In the seven days following the Israeli attack on Iran, at least 225 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.