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GENEVA

The trucks come. The crowds gather. But for many in Gaza, hope for a meal after months of siege has ended in bloodshed over the past several days.

Dozens have been shot dead in Gaza after Israeli forces opened fire on multiple occasions on Palestinians seeking aid brought in by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a group backed by the US and Israel that has been operating in the enclave since May 27.

Critics have condemned the killings and the GHF, which has not revealed the sources of its funding, shut down aid distribution on Wednesday, citing “update, organization, and efficiency improvement work.”

But for James Elder, UNICEF’s spokesperson in Gaza, the aid distribution plan backed by the US and controlled by Israel, amount to a deceptive “facade” used to manipulate and displace a starving population.

Speaking to Anadolu, Elder described how the GHF mechanism has become a tool of displacement in a territory on the brink of famine.

“The nutritional situation is catastrophic,” Elder said. “I’ve literally just been talking to an expert in nutrition, a nutrition colleague who made it very clear that if things continue as they are, the continued denial of humanitarian aid to this population that we are staring at famine. It’s never been so grave.”

Having recently returned to Gaza for his fifth visit since Israel’s offensive began in October 2023, Elder painted a bleak picture: teenage boys in tears tapping on car windows, showing their ribs in desperation. “There’s a level of despair now, of course, because people are just struggling to find ways to feed their family,” he said.

He accused the mechanism of luring civilians with food at heavily militarized sites. Two recent mass casualty incidents at such locations, he said, show the danger of this system. “This created mechanism way down in the South, a militarized form of some aid being given out, and there have been two massacres there yet. People still go because they return to the site of a massacre, because it’s the only place they might get some food.”

“It’s certainly baiting a population with food to try and forcibly displace them. That much is clear.”

Aid without transparency or intent

Elder dismissed GHF’s role as anything but humanitarian. “I think it underlines again. It’s just not a humanitarian group. You can put anything in your name and use the power of language, but they are not humanitarians. We don’t know where the funding source is. There’s nothing open about it. It’s not impartial.”

The halt in aid distribution following the deadly incidents at its centers is further proof, Elder argued, of its opacity and lack of accountability.

“This is not a humanitarian organization, this is a military organization,” he said. “This veneer of aid to try and calm some of that Western pressure … It’s not an aid modality. It’s not about that. It’s a facade, and it’s a very dangerous one.”

He contrasted the current model with a period of ceasefire earlier this year, when aid was delivered through over 400 community-based distribution points operated by UN agencies across Gaza. “You don’t force a mother to leave her children to walk 10 kilometers,” Elder said.

Today, by comparison, aid is funneled through just two central zones, he said, rendering it inaccessible for much of the population.

Beyond the GHF’s lack of experience or capacity, Elder said, the deeper concern is with their motives. “They don’t have the experience. But, more importantly, they don’t really have the intent.”

A ‘distraction’ from ongoing carnage

Elder warned that the current model actively harms civilians. “It’s a distraction from the ongoing carnage of children,” he said. “Which continues — we keep seeing this.”

He pointed to established UN agencies like UNICEF, UNRWA, and the World Food Programme as the ones equipped to deliver aid effectively. “It is the most effective way to reduce malnutrition, to reduce disease, to get vaccines across the Gaza Strip, to get clean water. We’ve done it. We know what to do. We just need to be given that chance to save those lives.”

Access to northern Gaza remains severely restricted. Asked about aid operations there, Elder acknowledged: “We know it’s little. We know it’s 20% of what people need. It’s 20% of what we can do.”

What was once a hunger crisis isolated to the north has now engulfed the entire enclave, he added. “This is like the destruction of a society brick by brick, child by child.”

Crisis ‘still reversible’

Despite the collapse of humanitarian access, Elder said it is not too late to reverse the hunger crisis — if political will is restored.

“The situation is completely reversible with that will,” he said, adding that “500 (trucks) a day over a sustained period” would be the minimum needed.

During the brief two-month ceasefire, the difference was immediate. “We watched malnutrition rates decline, we watched disease rates decline. We watched children go back to school. We watched vaccines go from north to south.”

Today, however, “We remain a long way away from that, and so many people are suffering as a result.”

He stressed that renewed aid access would require Israel to respect international humanitarian law and open the borders. “We’re asking for the thousands of trucks, 10 kilometers away to Israel, to accept international humanitarian law, and to allow that aid in to children, to civilians, to the vast bulk of this population.”

As the risk of a formal famine declaration looms, Elder said the warning signs are already clear. “Declaration of a famine means that a critical number of people, usually children, are already dying. It is a warning system to say that the world has failed. The world has failed here, but we are trying to limit that level of failure.”

The mood in Gaza, he said, swings between flickers of hope and crushing despair. “You can feel that mood change … but people also know that hope is not a strategy.”

His message from the ground was urgent and direct: “Listen to Palestinians, and they are saying to me time and again they are in utter survival mode, physically and psychologically.”

“They are on the precipice in terms of having everything crushed. So humanitarian aid must flow, and we need that ceasefire,” Elder said.

At least 102 Palestinian civilians were killed and 490 injured while seeking humanitarian aid from Israeli-designated centers in the Gaza Strip in eight days, according to Gaza’s government.

Since March 2, Israel has kept all border crossings shut, cutting off the entry of food, medicine, fuel, and other essential supplies for Gaza’s 2.4 million residents.

The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing more than 54,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children.