“The Americans are lying to us... They call it a humanitarian point then kill us there” —Arafat Siyam, whose brother was killed trying to get food aid
Sunday, June 1, 3 am: It’s pitch dark in southern Gaza but already thousands of Gazans desperate to feed their families have gathered near the Al-Alam roundabout along the coastal road west of Rafah which Israel had designated a safe area. It’s about a half-mile from the U.S.-run, Israel-supported “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) aid station which was due to open at 5:00 am.
Israel had starved Gaza for over 80 days, refusing to allow in food, water, medicine, fuel or other needed goods. The United Nations warned that it’s the only place on earth where the whole population is at risk of famine. Israel had recently let in a trickle of aid, but Gaza is still starving and many felt the new U.S. aid station was their only hope to quiet their achingly hungry children, crying for food.
Most had come on foot, some from miles away. They knew supplies were very limited and they had to get there early or lose out. This was the fourth time one man had tried to get food. Another said, “It’s like a race for food… Those who win the race get the aid.”
Around 3:30 am the crowd of some 10,000 or more people—stretching as far as the eye could see—began making their way to the aid site. Suddenly intense bursts of gunfire erupted, from snipers, drones, and tank-mounted machine-guns, seemingly coming from everywhere.
Bodies began falling, the dead and wounded dotting the ground. And the shooting continued for hours. “I could hear the screams of young people and others from their injuries,” one man told CNN. “In front of me were four young men with direct injuries to the head… there was a person next to me who was injured by a bullet in his eye… Even retreating was almost impossible, and everyone was lying on the ground unable to lift their heads because if you lifted your head, you would get shot.”
Mohammad Abu Rezeq was shot in the stomach. He said Israeli forces were deliberately targeting the crowd. “I have seen a lot of soldiers in this war. When they want to clear an area or warn you, they shoot around you. But yesterday, they were shooting to kill us.”1
Mohammed Abdulal had come from 18 miles away. Then a bullet ripped through his face, leaving him writhing in pain.
A young boy cried in agony beside his dead mother. “She went to get aid and this is what they do to us!” he screamed.
“The Americans are lying to us,” Arafat Siyam said. His brother had just been killed. “Since when have they cared about humanitarian work? They call it a humanitarian point then kill us there.”
The Death Trap of U.S.-Israeli “Humanitarian” Aid
Israeli forces fire on starving civilians at GHF aid hub in southern Gaza, killing 3 and injuring 35
The dead and wounded flooded Rafah’s hospitals. The Red Cross said its field hospital was overwhelmed, calling the slaughter the “highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident” in the year it had been open. Some 32 people had been killed and over 200 wounded, dozens seriously. All the dead had been shot in the head or chest. These weren’t “warning shots” as the Israeli military claimed afterward.
Dr. Victoria Rose is a volunteer surgeon who treated some of the wounded. “There are hundreds and thousands of children needlessly dying, children being blown up, children being starved and children dying of otherwise preventable illnesses,” she said. “[I]t’s a mass destruction of an entire population, and we can’t stand by and let this happen any longer.”
Israel and U.S.: Shifting Lies vs. the Truth Caught on Video
Israel’s military immediately claimed that accounts of it firing on Gazans near or within the aid distribution site were “false reports.” Later, it said that troops had “carried out warning fire” against “several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated access routes.”
The U.S.-run GHF backed up the Israeli version, insisting: “There was no gunfire in the (distribution) center and also not in the surrounding area.” It added, “All aid was distributed today without incident. We have heard that these fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas. They are untrue and fabricated.”
These are despicable lies, contradicted by mountains of testimony and video, including an in-depth investigation from CNN that found that Israel’s IDF was firing from 500-1000 yards from those seeking aid (i.e., they were not advancing on the military) and that the bullets recovered matched those from machine guns mounted on Israeli tanks.
Then there’s the fact that these massacres keep happening. The very next day, over 30 people were killed and dozens wounded at the very same site. As this is being written, more killings at “aid” stations are being reported. Since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid sites opened on May 27, at least 102 Palestinians have been killed and over 490 injured in similar attacks.
Then there’s the overall context: Israel’s systematic genocide aimed at making it impossible for Palestinians to live—or perhaps even stay—in Gaza. The absolute destruction of the infrastructure and ethnic cleansing. The mass slaughter, including the killing or wounding of 50,000 Palestinian children.2
"The world is watching, day after day, horrifying scenes of Palestinians being shot, wounded or killed in Gaza while simply trying to eat," UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said. "This is the outcome of a series of deliberate choices that have systematically deprived two million people of the essentials they need to survive."
The Trump/MAGA Fascist Regime Doubles Down—Directly Joining Israel in its Genocide—on the Ground in Gaza!
For the U.S. capitalist-imperialist system, Israel is an irreplaceable bastion and tool to maintain their domination of the strategic region of the Middle East. For decades the rulers of both parties have backed it with arms, intelligence, political support and more. “Genocide” Joe Biden threw his full support to Israel when it launched its Gaza genocide following Hamas’s reactionary attack of October 7, 2023—supplying billions in arms, vetoing one UN resolution after another, and much more.
But the Trump fascist regime has taken that support to a whole other level, a dangerous leap beyond what the Biden administration did. As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has analyzed, for the Trump fascist regime “raw destructive power is what must rule in the international arena, without even the pretense of adherence to international law or concern about the sovereignty, or even the right to exist, of less powerful peoples and countries.”
This has been gruesomely illustrated in Trump’s plan to turn Gaza into a “Riviera on the Mediterranean” by ethnically cleansing all the Palestinians, and how Netan-Nazi has eagerly implemented this in his brazenly genocidal “Operation Gideon’s Chariots.”
Now, the Trump regime is doubling down again—organizing the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” setting up aid sites in Gaza, and deploying armed U.S. contractors to do security in them.3
These aid sites are an important part of Israel’s military operation, called "Gideon’s Chariots.” This is aimed at quieting international outrage by allowing a trickle of food to come into Gaza, supposedly easing the prospect of mass starvation. The goal—further terrorizing the whole population and enabling Israel to continue its campaign of annihilation!
These U.S. aid stations also serve to drive starving Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza and come to the south for food. This is in line with Israel’s plan to squeeze the entire population of two million Palestinians into a corner of land in Gaza’s far south making up 20 percent of its land. From there, Israel’s goal is confining, and then expelling or diminishing, the population, in one way or another, immediately or over time.
And again, these aid stations are right in the killing fields of Gaza.
STOP the U.S.-Israeli Genocide on the Palestinian People! End the Siege on Gaza! The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go!
In the face of growing global condemnation, Israel could not carry out its genocidal campaign without the backing of the fascist Trump regime. Forcing that regime from power through mass, nonviolent political protest would be an incredibly powerful blow against Israel and its ability to continue carrying out its towering crimes against humanity.4
This is why we wrote last week:
The protests demanding an end to the U.S.-Israeli Genocidal Slaughter of the Palestinian people must also take a leap. And while the fight to defeat the fascist Trump regime and the fight against the U.S.-Israeli genocide are not identical, they do need to overlap—each getting strength and determination from the other.
Stop the U.S.-Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinian People!
In The Name of Humanity, We Refuse To Accept A Fascist America!
The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go—NOW!
Other Ways the Trump/MAGA Regime has Backed Israel’s Genocide… This Past Week Alone
- Veto Ceasefire Resolution. June 4, the U.S. vetoed yet another UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. It was the only country to vote no. This, at a moment when Israel’s atrocities are more blatant than ever, is a big green light for it to continue its murderous onslaught.
- Rejected the just demand for an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza and the withdrawal of its troops. This was put forward by Hamas in its ceasefire negotiations with the U.S. Siding with Israel, Trump’s envoy Witkoff called the demands “totally unacceptable.”
- Warned Britain and France not to support a resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, which they reportedly planned to do during a major UN conference beginning June 17 in New York City.5
- Threatening Greta Thunberg and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The flotilla is heading for Gaza with aid and to draw attention to Israel’s atrocities, in the face of many threats. One came from U.S. senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham, who wrote on X, “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!”6
- Bullying the media over its coverage of the killing of Palestinians seeking food. The Trump regime demanded that the BBC "correct and take down" its story on Israel’s killing of some 31 people seeking food at the U.S.-run aid center on June 1. The White House accused the BBC of taking "the word of Hamas." The BBC said its story was accurate and refused to take it down or change it.
- Washington Post caves into Trump. In contrast, the Washington Post revised one article on the massacre under pressure from the Trump regime. It said the changes made it clear that "there was no consensus about who was responsible" for the killings. That’s a bald-faced lie.7
- Sanctioning ICC judges for investigating Israel’s war crimes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court.8
A group of 12 activists have set sail from a Sicilian port in Italy carrying aid for Gaza. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition had initially planned to sail from Malta last month, but the group’s ship was damaged in a drone attack. Passengers on board the flotilla include the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. As we post this on June 8, there are news reports that the Israeli troops had boarded the Freedom Flotilla boat and taken Thunberg and other activists into custody.
Greta Thunberg: “A month after our latest attempt to go on with this mission, the boat was bombed twice. All evidence suggests Israel. And we are doing this because we have to keep our promise to the Palestinians to do everything in our power to protest against the genocide and to try to open up a humanitarian corridor.”