While the war between Israel and Iran is drawing attention away from Gaza, it’s worth seeing what Hamas is doing: killing civilians who seek food.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been distributing food inside Gaza. Whether one views this as a bold experiment (as I do) or a terrible idea, it does bring food to Gaza and Gazans come out in the thousands to collect it. What is the Hamas response? To kill Gazans who need that food for their families.
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Col. Richard Kemp, a retired British officer, told The Jerusalem Post that he visited one food distribution site and found the effort “brilliantly conceived and extremely well executed. They are feeding the people of Gaza until such time as it becomes unnecessary.”
But in incident after incident, people lining up for food have been shot and many others scared away. Hamas’s reasoning is simple: control of food is control of the population for Hamas, a source of power as well as cash (when it sells the food on the black market). If Gazans do not need Hamas to eat, its power is badly diminished.
The Palestinian Authority’s newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida wrote about this on June 19. Its editorial (translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute) stated that “numerous reports out of Gaza say that Hamas is killing many civilians looking for a sack of flour on the pretext that they are collaborating with the American food distribution centers!!…. Hamas has no choice but to set up death squads [to operate] against anyone who opposes its theft and tries to find a sack of flour outside its control and far from its black market… It is not only Israel that is creating this terrible reality; Hamas is complicit in this industry of death, hunting down the hungry with the death squads it calls Al-Sahm, in order to inform anyone who approaches [the distribution centers] that do not belong to Hamas that their only [fate] will be to fall victim to the arrows of the Al-Sahm Unit. This is the bitter reality: Hamas and its Al-Sahm Unit, which hunts down those who seek nothing but a crust of bread.”
Proof for this editorial is offered in social media posts that accuse Hamas of precisely such killings. There are other accounts from the GHF itself, which reported that on June 11 that a bus carrying two dozen workers traveling to a distribution center was attacked by Hamas and eight killed. The Long War Journal and FDD have reported on such Hamas strikes, and Hamas itself has made clear threats.
Hamas’s motivation is equally clear: power and control. In those efforts to stop the food distribution, it has the support of various United Nations agencies including UNRWA. This will be no surprise in view of years of collaboration between UNRWA and Hamas, but it is no less shameful for that. Hamas reacts to accusations against it by its own accusations that such shootings are all the work of Israel. But Israel is supporting the GHF and trying to undermine Hamas’s control of food distribution. It has no motive for shooting Gazans lined up at GHF sites, and no explanation is ever offered for why it might be doing so. In fact, Hamas is also killing Gazans lining up at UN sites to get food, as MSNBC reported after first falsely stating on June 20 that the killings were at a GHF site.
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So the scene is remarkable: an effort to distribute food is denounced by the United Nations, which should in fact be supporting it in every way possible. In this sense the United Nations is acting as Hamas is: it would apparently rather not see food distributed than see it brought in outside UN channels. Navi Pillay, who chairs the UN’s so-called Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Israel and the Palestinian territories, called GHF’s efforts “outrageous,” as if Gazans should refuse food they need because it doesn’t come from the United Nations. Amnesty International, famous for its bias against Israel, said that “The United Nations and global aid organizations have universally condemned the GHF for undermining established aid distribution networks….” But those networks have for decades been part of Hamas’s control mechanisms in Gaza. Amnesty conveniently overlooks inconvenient facts—such as the finding that UNRWA staff members in Gaza actually participated in the October 7, 2023 massacre, and that Hamas members, including a top commander, were UNRWA officials.
GHF is highly controversial, mostly for the wrong reasons. Breaking from the “established aid distribution networks” is not a crime. Bringing food to Gaza is not a violation of international humanitarian law. It is shameful that the denunciations focus on GHF rather than on the Hamas killings of Gazans lined up for food.
Pressure Points
Pressure Points
Meanwhile, Hamas is Killing Civilians Who Seek Food
While the war between Israel and Iran is drawing attention away from Gaza, it’s worth seeing what Hamas is doing: killing civilians who seek food.
June 21, 2025 9:17 am (EST)
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- Blog posts represent the views of CFR fellows and staff and not those of CFR, which takes no institutional positions.
While the war between Israel and Iran is drawing attention away from Gaza, it’s worth seeing what Hamas is doing: killing civilians who seek food.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been distributing food inside Gaza. Whether one views this as a bold experiment (as I do) or a terrible idea, it does bring food to Gaza and Gazans come out in the thousands to collect it. What is the Hamas response? To kill Gazans who need that food for their families.
More on:
Col. Richard Kemp, a retired British officer, told The Jerusalem Post that he visited one food distribution site and found the effort “brilliantly conceived and extremely well executed. They are feeding the people of Gaza until such time as it becomes unnecessary.”
But in incident after incident, people lining up for food have been shot and many others scared away. Hamas’s reasoning is simple: control of food is control of the population for Hamas, a source of power as well as cash (when it sells the food on the black market). If Gazans do not need Hamas to eat, its power is badly diminished.
The Palestinian Authority’s newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida wrote about this on June 19. Its editorial (translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute) stated that “numerous reports out of Gaza say that Hamas is killing many civilians looking for a sack of flour on the pretext that they are collaborating with the American food distribution centers!!…. Hamas has no choice but to set up death squads [to operate] against anyone who opposes its theft and tries to find a sack of flour outside its control and far from its black market… It is not only Israel that is creating this terrible reality; Hamas is complicit in this industry of death, hunting down the hungry with the death squads it calls Al-Sahm, in order to inform anyone who approaches [the distribution centers] that do not belong to Hamas that their only [fate] will be to fall victim to the arrows of the Al-Sahm Unit. This is the bitter reality: Hamas and its Al-Sahm Unit, which hunts down those who seek nothing but a crust of bread.”
Proof for this editorial is offered in social media posts that accuse Hamas of precisely such killings. There are other accounts from the GHF itself, which reported that on June 11 that a bus carrying two dozen workers traveling to a distribution center was attacked by Hamas and eight killed. The Long War Journal and FDD have reported on such Hamas strikes, and Hamas itself has made clear threats.
Hamas’s motivation is equally clear: power and control. In those efforts to stop the food distribution, it has the support of various United Nations agencies including UNRWA. This will be no surprise in view of years of collaboration between UNRWA and Hamas, but it is no less shameful for that. Hamas reacts to accusations against it by its own accusations that such shootings are all the work of Israel. But Israel is supporting the GHF and trying to undermine Hamas’s control of food distribution. It has no motive for shooting Gazans lined up at GHF sites, and no explanation is ever offered for why it might be doing so. In fact, Hamas is also killing Gazans lining up at UN sites to get food, as MSNBC reported after first falsely stating on June 20 that the killings were at a GHF site.
More on:
So the scene is remarkable: an effort to distribute food is denounced by the United Nations, which should in fact be supporting it in every way possible. In this sense the United Nations is acting as Hamas is: it would apparently rather not see food distributed than see it brought in outside UN channels. Navi Pillay, who chairs the UN’s so-called Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Israel and the Palestinian territories, called GHF’s efforts “outrageous,” as if Gazans should refuse food they need because it doesn’t come from the United Nations. Amnesty International, famous for its bias against Israel, said that “The United Nations and global aid organizations have universally condemned the GHF for undermining established aid distribution networks….” But those networks have for decades been part of Hamas’s control mechanisms in Gaza. Amnesty conveniently overlooks inconvenient facts—such as the finding that UNRWA staff members in Gaza actually participated in the October 7, 2023 massacre, and that Hamas members, including a top commander, were UNRWA officials.
GHF is highly controversial, mostly for the wrong reasons. Breaking from the “established aid distribution networks” is not a crime. Bringing food to Gaza is not a violation of international humanitarian law. It is shameful that the denunciations focus on GHF rather than on the Hamas killings of Gazans lined up for food.
