The aerial photographs show five narrow lanes made of high metal fences wedged between two artificial mounds of earth and topped with barbed wire. Inside, hundreds of people are crammed under the baking sun.
The sight of ordinary Gazans corralled into cages is not the image Israel’s reputation managers were after. But, just over a week into its controversial new aid delivery scheme to bypass Hamas using a US contractor, that is what they are faced with.
A crowd of Palestinians queue for aid at a GHF hub in southern Gaza.
That, and viral videos of civilians running for their lives to the sound of gunfire, amid accusations – bitterly denied by Israel – that more than 20 were shot dead by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Sunday as order disintegrated at a distribution centre in the south of the Strip.
One man who spoke to The London Telegraph said he found the centre “terrifying” and “like a prison”, but that he was forced there – kilometres from his temporary home – out of fear that his children would starve.
Another called it “a place of killing”.
Fuelling the international criticism is the nature of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the American company created to deliver the new system, with persistent suggestions of CIA involvement, opaque funding and concealed Israeli control.
This has been enhanced by condemnation from the UN and other large aid NGOs, which want nothing to do with the GHF and accuse it of politicising aid.
After Sunday’s alleged shooting, and new claims of gunfire killing more than 20 people overnight, the project’s credibility is on a knife-edge.
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From Israel’s point of view, the new syst
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