She walked for hours in hope of getting food. But Israeli forces killed her, family says

It was 8 p.m., just after sunset, when Reem Zeidan, 42, set off for an aid distribution site with two of her eight children, Mervat, 20, and Ahmad, 12. Zeidan wanted to get a bag of flour to make bread. Her 5-year-old daughter, Razan, was hoping for biscuits. Zeidan brought a blue backpack to carry whatever she might be able to bring home.

Distribution wouldn’t open until the next morning, June 3, but the walk along a sea route, from Khan Younis, where they were sheltering in a tent, to Rafah, where the aid site was, would take hours. On the first day the distribution site opened, Zeidan had arrived at 9 a.m., too late to collect any food. Another day, she turned back when she heard there was gunfire near the site.

By then, there had already been multiple incidents in which Palestinians were reported to have been killed while seeking aid in Gaza after a new distribution program was launched just over a week before, led by a recently founded U.S.- and Israel-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The United Nations, which had previously run a network of hundreds of aid distribution points across Gaza but has since been sidelined by Israel, warned that reducing aid distribution to GHF’s four sites would be chaotic, insufficient and dangerous. Since GHF began operations on May 26, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to reach its aid distribution sites, according to the local health ministry and witnesses.

The Israeli military acknowledges involvement in many of these incidents, often saying that soldiers fire warning shots or at individuals who appear to pose a threat or are in unauthorized areas. GHF says the attacks happen outside their distribution sites.

Most of the deadly incidents unfolded as Palestinians traveled to the GHF distribution sites, according to Palestinian health authorities and witnesses. At least one incident unfolded as Palestinians waited to collect food from a United Nations site, the organization has said.

Zeidan would soon join the dozens killed as they struggled to secure food, underscoring the pitfalls of a new aid system in which tens of thousands of Palestinians must walk long distances — often through areas controlled by the Israeli military — to have a chance of getting a fraction of the limited aid being handed out.

After walking for about five hours, Zeidan, Mervat and Ahmad had reached a seaside area north of Rafah known as “Fish Fresh.”