Dr Khairi Janbek
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Saleem Ayoub Quna
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Nearly one person in three is not eating for days. Food aid is the only way for most people to access any food – as the cost of a one-kilogram bag of flour has surged to over USD100 in local markets.
CrossFireArabia
The World Food Program (WFP) condemned the Israeli military for firing on a humanitarian convoy delivering food aid to northern Gaza on Sunday morning, calling the attack “completely unacceptable” and urging an immediate end to violence against civilians seeking life-saving assistance.
The 25-truck convoy had entered Gaza through the Zikim crossing carrying vital supplies when “the surrounding crowd came under fire from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire,” the UN agency said in a statement.
“These people were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation,” it said, expressing deep sorrow over “the loss of countless lives” and many more suffering life-threatening injuries.
The WFP criticized the breach of prior assurances by Israeli authorities that humanitarian convoys would not face military engagement.
“There should never, ever, be armed groups near or on our aid convoys,” it stressed. “Shootings near humanitarian missions, convoys and food distributions must stop immediately.”
The agency warned that without safer conditions for aid operations, it may be forced to suspend deliveries across Gaza.
“WFP teams accompanying convoys should not have to risk their own lives in the effort to save others,” the statement said.
Highlighting Gaza’s deepening hunger crisis, the WFP said nearly one in three people are going days without food, with malnutrition surging among 90,000 women and children urgently needing treatment.
“We urgently call on the international community and all parties to advocate for, and facilitate, the delivery of life-saving food aid to starving populations inside Gaza — safely, securely, wherever families are, and without obstruction,” it added.
CrossFireArabia
By Dr Amer Al Sabaileh
Southern Syria has returned to the center of regional attention with the recent outbreak of violent clashes. These developments, while not surprising, reflect the ongoing fragility of Syria’s political and security landscape. Since the collapse of the Assad regime, Syria has remained in a state of uncertainty, with internal power balances eroded and the rise of the Shar-Joulani administration in the absence of a viable and inclusive governance framework.
Over the past seven months, the country has witnessed massacres and targeted attacks against Alawites, Druze, Kurds, and Christians—clear signs of deep and worsening instability. This internal collapse is being exploited by external actors, particularly Israel, which views southwestern Syria as critical to establishing a demilitarized buffer zone along the Golan Heights. Despite the complexity of Syria’s internal landscape, Israeli strategic calculations in southwestern Syria remain a pivotal factor in shaping the region’s future.
While Israel initially entered the scene under the banner of “protecting the Druze,” this intervention risks inflaming sectarian tensions and sparking a prolonged conflict. At the same time, it has begun to impose a new reality on the ground—one that cannot be addressed without genuine understanding amongst key Syrian groups such as the Druze and Kurds, as well as broader arrangements with Israel itself. The latter has already sent unmistakable signals to Damascus through symbolic military strikes, indicating that future operations could escalate to directly undermine or even topple the current regime.
The ongoing clashes in Sweida and Damascus are likely to persist, especially in the absence of a clear military map for southern Syria. This suggests that Israeli strikes on military infrastructure in Damascus and beyond may continue. Furthermore, sectarian instability is set to deepen amid mutual distrust between the Druze, Bedouin tribes, and the central government—raising the probability of renewed violence. The recent developments have provided Druze militias with significant de facto autonomy, potentially opening the door for direct regional support, as they increasingly emerge as independent actors on the ground.
In parallel, this fragmentation heightens the risk of southern Syria becoming a multi-front proxy battlefield. Hezbollah—under internal pressure in Lebanon—alongside Iranian militias, may seek to open a new front against Israel, exploiting Syria’s geography to mount a tangible threat and divert Israeli focus away from Tehran.
These developments expose the deep institutional fragility of the Syrian state. The new transitional government remains unable to assert control or establish legitimacy in contested provinces, which paves the way for militias to expand their influence and for chaos to deepen. With the resurgence of extremist groups, the implications for long-term stability and reconstruction in Syria are deeply alarming.
Israel is moving forward with plans to establish a demilitarized buffer zone along its border with Syria, administered by friendly or at least non-hostile forces. The areas of Sweida and southern Daraa are of particular strategic importance, as Israel aims to prevent the advance of forces loyal to the new Syrian administration or the infiltration of Iranian proxies and Hezbollah operatives.
This unprecedented weakening of the Syrian administration may leave it increasingly prone to align with Israeli interests or offer major concessions simply to survive—an opportunity Israel will likely exploit to reshape not just Syria’s security geography, but its broader political map in accordance with long-term Israeli strategic goals.
From the Jordanian perspective, this evolving reality on Syria’s southern border presents a real and growing threat to national security. The concern goes beyond the spectre of chaos or fighting spilling across the border. It’s about a broader attempt to reshape the geopolitical landscape of the entire region—a transformation that will inevitably affect Jordan. Rising security threats are likely to be accompanied by political ones, as the drivers and dynamics of the Syrian conflict may cross borders. This makes it imperative for Jordan to adopt a proactive approach that prevents the spread of this new reality—both in its security and societal dimensions—into its own territory.
The author is a writer for The Jordan Times
CrossFireArabia
By Munia Jamal
Sameh described how people — sometimes 20,000 to 30,000 at a time — wait all day in the heat. When the gate opens, they surge forward, crashing through barbed wire, trampling over each other, trying to grab whatever they can from the aid.
I watched a video last week that I wish I couldn’t see: A small boy, no older than nine, crying over the body of his martyred mother in front of a journalist’s camera. His eyes were red, his shoulders shaking, dust still clinging to his face.
“She went out to bring us aid,” he said. “She never came back.”
That boy is Ahmed Zidan. And I haven’t been able to forget his face since. His mother had left that day just to get food. That’s all: A little flour, a few canned goods, if she got lucky. But she never returned. She was killed in western Rafah, surrounded by gunfire, panic, and chaos.
Ahmed’s mother was just trying to feed her children. But like so many others, she became a victim of what the world dares to call “The American humanitarian aid.”
Ahmed’s tearful face was shared on the news, across social media, and around the world. But for him, it wasn’t a story, it wasn’t content, it was the moment his world collapsed.
Don’t go, says Ahmad Zeidan holding his mother’s shoes after she was killed: it’s a lie, a lie | the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a firing squad pic.twitter.com/QwcU9udAZJ
— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) June 3, 2025
The Aid that Kills
When the first Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site opened on May 26, 2025, it came with bold promises. It was billed as the solution of four centralized aid hubs, guarded by US private contractors, coordinated with Israeli oversight, and allegedly designed to bring order to the chaos of Gaza’s hunger crisis.
According to Israeli and US officials’ claims, aid was supposed to flow safely to the most vulnerable. But just two days later, tanks, tear gas, and bullets greeted the crowds who gathered in Rafah. Instead of food, they found death. So far, nearly 900 Palestinians have been killed and over 5,000 wounded recorded at aid sites. Mothers, children, and elders are all caught between hunger and bullets.
It’s hard to explain the feeling of being watched while trying to survive, of having your basic needs locked behind fences, guards, and guns. And with any wrong move, you could be shot.
They called it online “the real-life Squid Game.”
And honestly? They’re right. Because in Gaza, we run for food and get shot for it. Not for prize money, but for a bag of flour. It’s not an exaggeration; it’s the daily reality for the hungry in Gaza.
Scores of Palestinians Killed in Israeli Strikes, Including 20 Aid Seekers
‘Forgive Me’
Israa is from Khan Yunis, but today she lives in a tent in Al-Mawasi, one of Gaza’s last so-called “safe zones.” Her family was forced to flee months ago. “We’ve lost our home,” she said, “but losing Abdullah… that broke something deeper.”
Abdullah was her cousin — 31 years old, an orphan, and a caretaker to his younger siblings. He lived with his younger brother and sister in the tent. The rest of the family is scattered, most of them are married and displaced in different parts of Gaza.
He used to work as a cleaner, even during the war, hired by Doctors Without Borders when everything else shut down. He was engaged to be married at the end of July. “His fiancée was sewing her wedding dress,” Israa told me. “Now, she’s burying his clothes.”
On July 3, 2025, Abdullah went to the American aid center in Khan Younis. He went there almost every day. “Not because he wanted to,” Israa said, “but because he had to. There was no other way to feed the family.”
That day, an Israeli artillery shell struck the crowd. Abdullah was killed instantly.
“It wasn’t random,” Israa said. “They were aiming at the people. He told us before he left, ‘If I don’t come back today, forgive me.’ It’s like he knew. Like he could feel it.”
When we heard the news, the family was shocked. “We couldn’t believe it. Even now, it doesn’t feel real. He had dreams. He wanted a family. He wanted peace.”
Why do people still go to these centers? Israa answered without hesitation: “Because people are starving. There’s no other choice. We know it’s dangerous. But what’s worse, dying slowly from hunger, or all at once from a bomb?”
I ask if there’s anything she wants to say to the world. She looked at me tired, but clear. “Tell them we are not numbers. Tell them Abdullah had dreams. A fiancée. A wedding date. A heart. He was human. We all are. But this world doesn’t treat us like that anymore.”
Massacre at Aid Centers: Scores of Palestinians Killed by Israeli Fire in Gaza
Sameh is 40, from Beit Lahia, now displaced in Al-Shati refugee camp. When I spoke to him, he didn’t start with anger. He started with exhaustion, the kind that comes from hunger, from fear, from waiting in line not for bread, but for a chance at it.
“They starved us for over 100 days,” Sameh told me. “No food was allowed in. Nothing. Then they opened these so-called American aid centers protected by Israeli soldiers and said, “It’s not food. It’s a trap.”
He was talking about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation centers. Sameh made his way to the Wadi Gaza center near Netzarim in the middle of the strip. “It was like a playground surrounded by barbed wire, and the aid was inside. They open the gate at random. No one knows when. It could be in the morning or at night. A green flare means the center is open. Red means it’s closed. If it’s daytime, you hear a drone announce it. And that’s when the chaos begins.”
Sameh described how people — sometimes 20,000 to 30,000 at a time — wait all day in the heat. When the gate opens, they surge forward, crashing through barbed wire, trampling over each other, trying to grab whatever they can from the aid.
He said it never lasts more than ten minutes. “I’ve gone twice. The first time, I left with nothing. The second time, I found a few things on the ground — a kilo of lentils, a kilo of chickpeas, a kilo of peas, and some salt. That’s what I brought home to my kids.”
Sameh told me that only about 10% of these people actually get anything. Organized gangs always push to the front, looting the best items — flour, sugar, oil — and then reselling them at outrageous prices.
He said the Israeli army watches and lets it happen. In fact, it feels like they want it that way. “There’s no safety. No system. Just weapons, fear, and starvation. The gangs take what they want. The rest of us crawl on the ground like animals. That’s what they made us.”
Sameh has seen more than just hunger. “I saw a young man next to me get shot in the leg. He fell down and screamed, but no one could help him — they were too busy trying to grab food. Another time, a boy no older than 17 — he was right next to me — took a sniper bullet between the eyes. Dead. Just like that. Another guy next to him was hit in the chest.”
Sameh paused before adding something that shook me. “You know what? I’d rather die trying to feed my children than watch them die of hunger in front of me. I have no money. I can’t buy anything. If I don’t go, we starve. If I do go, I might not come back.”
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation ‘Responsible’ for Aid Point ‘Death Traps’
He said Israel allows this violence to continue because it wants disorder. When trucks entered through Netzarim or Zikim in the north, he said, the tribes once organized a secure delivery to UN warehouses.
It worked — until Israel blocked it. “They don’t want dignity. They want panic,” he told me. “These centers are just a show. They open them so the world can say, ‘Look, Gaza is getting help.’ But what does that help even mean if we can’t reach it? If we have to risk our lives just to get a bag of flour? What kind of aid is this, if we can’t even survive the line to receive it?”
Sameh’s voice didn’t crack when he told me this. It hardened. Because in Gaza today, even hope feels like something we have to fight for.
Creating Monsters
Sabri is 23. He’s the oldest of five, and ever since his father died, he’s had no choice but to become everything — brother, provider, protector. “I walked from Al-Shati camp to Rafah,” he said. “I left at 4 in the afternoon. I didn’t get back until 3 the next day.”
Twenty-three hours. All of that — the walking, the waiting, the risk — for just three kilos of flour. But it’s not just the distance. It’s what you face when you get there.
Sabri told me the crowds are like groups. “At the front, there are gangs. They’re not like us. They come to steal the valuable stuff and throw the rest on the ground.”
Behind them, a few desperate people try to collect what’s left. And the ones who truly need the aid? They usually leave empty-handed. Sabri was one of them. “Some people don’t even go for food,” he told me. “They just collect the empty cardboard boxes to burn for fire.”
He said he was lucky this time. He got something. But that luck came with a price. “The shooting started in front of me. People were screaming and trying to cover. But I stayed. Because my brothers were hungry. What else could I do?”
Don’t Fund the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation: It’s a Genocidal Smokescreen
Hunger doesn’t scare him anymore, not the way the silence at home does, when his siblings look at him with tired faces, waiting for food. “I didn’t care if I died. I just wanted to come back with something.”
Then, Sabri said something that stuck with me: “This war — this way of helping — it’s made monsters out of people. People kill each other for a sack of flour. That’s what they’ve done to us.”
He says that it’s normal now. Like that’s what life should be: risking death for food.
But it’s not normal. Nothing about this is.
It feels like a game, but we are not playing. What kind of help is this? Where feeding your family feels like breaking the law; where aid comes wrapped in barbed wire and guarded by snipers; Where people must risk their lives just to eat.
How did we get to a place where a single bag of flour can cost someone their life? Where hunger turns people fight each other, forget who they are — just to survive.
If the world truly wants to help Gaza, start by treating us like human beings.
We don’t need pity, we need protection; we need a future; we want to live, not die trying to eat.
We are not players in a game; we are not your footage; we are not actors in a show, we are not numbers on a screen.
At the end of Squid Game, the player 456 whispers: “We are not horses. We are humans. Humans are…”
He never finishes. Neither do we. Because in Gaza, we’re never given the chance.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
CrossFireArabia
Gaza is starving. There has never been like it in this Israeli-induced and enforced genocide that has now been going on for about 19 months and counting.
People are literally falling in the streets and in front of the television cameras because of the biting hunger that doesn’t seem to end at the hands of a merciless Israeli enemy.
Of the people who manage to get to the dilapidated and destroyed hospitals they are dropping off on the doors of these institutions with many losing consciousness and even shrieking the last breath of death. And people die while the people in the world looks on with lavish feasts.
UNRWA says Israeli is systematically and willfully starving the Palestinian population into submission; they want them either dead or expel from their ancestral homes in the Gaza Strip. The UN refugee organization says that up to 1 million children are threatened with death through starvation. These figures are given as they are the most natural thing in the world.
This is one of the worst periods of the genocide as Arab and Israeli makers meet in Doha and elsewhere try to end this nightmare but to no avail as politics over-rides common sense and decency.
Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiyah, director of the Al Shifa Hospital says that neither patients nor medical staff nor ancillary personnel in the whole of the Gaza hospitals, which number 36 in total, have had anything to eat in the last 24 hours.
Al Jazeera correspondent Anis Alsharif says neither him nor the other anchors have had a bite to eat since Saturday afternoon because there isn’t any. People around here walk aimless until their last breath of death. Yet people, except for the frail seems to go on, as if their is an ordained hand telling, forcing them to go on.
The Israelis have refused to let anything into Gaza since last March when they realized that there was a possibility that Palestinians would flourish again; and this is after they threw on them around 100,000 tons of bombs, facilitated by their American benefactors – a situation that begun soon after, 7 October, 2023.
There is simply no food into the strip thanks to Israel. Even animal fodder, which Gazans had been reduced to eating in order to survive in the first period of starvation in 2024 and early 2025, has run out. Then fodder like wheat and barely was eaten to survive, but this appears to be the end game.
In this brave new world of starvation and famine, food has become a scarce, nay, non-existent commodity because of Israeli policies to beat the Palestinians with but they will not win despite the evil intentions.
UNRWA continues to appeal to the international community to force Israel to lift its tight and claustrophobic siege on Gaza and let the aid, food and medicine into the strip. Meanwhile, it says it has its cargoes lying in the Sinai Peninsula waiting to be delivered to the starving people of Gaza. It says in its storehouses, it has three months of supplies but it’s waiting for the might of Israel to upon up the borders.
Meanwhile people are continuing to die starting from Rafah, in Khan Younis in the center of the Strip to the far-northern areas in Jabalia, Biet Lahia and Biet Hanoon where fighting is still going on between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Israeli army.
In comes the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which has since last May tried to provide food parcels at distribution centers run by US and Israeli personnel and which is today turning into a “free-shooting killing field” of starving Palestinian that has young been denounced by the United Nations as “weaponizing food” with very sinister connotations that include depopulating Gaza of its original inhabitants.
Seeing is believing. Palestinians, and on a daily basis, and under the eyes of the world are shot fatally on a daily basis. Take Sunday for example, the number of those that have killed is already in the 60s. As they run to get their food parcels they are shot by Israeli soldiers guarding the distribution centers. They are shot with no compunctions but with a sense of hellish deliverance.
And it is the social media who are narrating, nay “dancing” on the graves of the Palestinians. This war is probably the most documented set of atrocities, but people, the international community, gaze on with a sense of helpless, frustration and complicity. Professor Amos Goldberg, who teaches Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University, doesn’t mince words. He says this is a “disgusting genocide”.
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