Above photo: Palestinian aid-seekers near the aid distribution site run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Rafah, May 27, 2025. Ahmed Ibrahim/APA Images.
On Tuesday, thousands of desperate Palestinians went to Rafah where the new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was distributing long-awaited food and aid.
Instead of bringing food to their families, some ended up dead and missing.
Muhammad Imad Abdel Hadi traveled from Khan Younis to Rafah on May 27 to obtain food after hearing that the American and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was distributing aid in the Tal al-Sultan area. Amid the chaos that erupted at the distribution point, starving Palestinians desperate for food stormed the site and forced the American mercenaries manning it to retreat.
Muhammad was one of the people who managed to secure a food parcel for his family. He was on his way back with the joyful news when the Israeli army killed him before he could deliver it.
Muhammad’s mother, Rehab Abdel Hadi, dressed in black, now carries her son’s coffin at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and walks in his funeral procession. Holding the coffin with one hand and placing the other on her chest, she speaks aloud to herself as she walks toward the cemetery: “My eldest son is dead. The light has gone from my eyes.”
Rehab laments that her eldest son went to get food for the family, and that he left walking on his own two feet, but was carried back on people’s shoulders.
Like many others in the displacement centers, Muhammad and a group of his friends and neighbors went to the distribution point, desperate to find food for their families. Together, they collected food boxes and left. On their way back, they separated near the Jizan al-Najjar area along the Salah al-Din Road between Khan Younis and Rafah. Ahmad al-Qadi, one of the friends who had accompanied Muhammad, was the first to reach his home.
Moments later, Ahmad heard an explosion nearby. He looked around and realized that the group he had just left had been targeted by an Israeli drone. Muhammad was among them.
Al-Qadi said the strike occurred about half a kilometer from the aid distribution point, where they had received the food boxes.
“We had obtained the aid with great difficulty,” he said in testimony for Mondoweiss. “Minutes after I entered my home, I heard the sound of the drone missile.”
The harrowing scene al-Qadi saw was reminiscent of images from the “flour massacre” in March 2024. “I looked toward the street and saw Muhammad and the others lying on the ground, torn to pieces, with food boxes scattered around them,” he said.
Three Killed, 7 Missing After Rafah Incident
On Tuesday, Muhammad Abdel Hadi was one of thousands of Palestinians who headed to Rafah to receive food boxes that were supposed to be distributed by the GHF.
In the wake of the storming of the site, reports began to emerge of people being abducted while waiting in line to receive aid, as reported by Drop Site News. Several other cases were reported of people leaving their shelters to secure aid for their families and never coming back, with their whereabouts remaining unknown.
The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, a newly established independent organization in the Gaza Strip, issued a statement Tuesday evening confirming that some individuals who went to receive food at the American distribution point are now missing.
“We are following with concern the disappearance of several citizens after they headed this afternoon to a U.S. aid distribution point in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip,” the Center’s statement said. “There is no confirmed information yet about their fate.”
The Center held the “Israeli occupation fully responsible,” demanding the immediate disclosure of the fate of the missing.
The Gaza Government Media Office echoed these reports on Tuesday, stating that seven people had disappeared after the incident in Rafah.
The Media Office also said that Israeli forces had committed a “massacre” at the GHF-run distribution center, killing three civilians and injuring 46 others. In addition to Muhammad Abdel Hadi, the Media Office identified the two other slain victims as Khalil Ashraf Khalil Musa, and Ashraf Anwar Khalil Musa. It was not immediately clear how Khalil and Ashraf Musa were killed, and whether they were killed at the aid distribution point, or in a manner similar to the killing of Abdel Hadi, who was targeted on his way home after securing aid.
“This occurred during a gathering inside the so-called ‘aid distribution centers’ run by the Israeli occupation within what are known as the ‘buffer zones,’” the Media Office said, referring to the flattened parts of Gaza in Rafah that have been completely taken over by the Israeli military. “The Israeli occupation forces, present in or around these areas, fired live ammunition at the starving civilians whom they had told to come receive aid, even though the dire need for food had driven them to these sites.”
The U.S.-backed organization’s distribution of aid to Gaza’s starving population is in line with Israel’s plan to control the delivery of aid to Palestinians. The objective of the Israeli plan, ostensibly to deny Hamas access to aid, is in actuality a means of concentrating Gaza’s population into isolated ghettos and using aid as bait to lure them there.
‘I Came Here Anyway Because Hunger Is Merciless’
On Tuesday, young men capable of carrying aid boxes were not the only ones who went to the distribution point. Everyone who heard that food was available rushed to the site, driven by the widespread hunger affecting the population.
Samira Abu Khammash, a mother of eight, went to the distribution point despite exhaustion and suffering from several chronic medical conditions. Upon hearing gunfire before she could reach the aid site, she quickly turned back, returning to her children empty-handed.
“I have injured children and a 19-year-old disabled daughter,” the mother of eight added. “I can’t provide food for her or take care of her needs. We are exhausted from searching for bread and finding none.”
Abu Khammash described what she saw as she neared the distribution point, saying that the crowds had pushed forward until they tore down the fence surrounding the area. Just as people began to reach the boxes of aid, she heard gunfire.
“People stormed the place, and everyone started running,” Abu Khammash said. “We heard heavy gunfire. We didn’t know where it was coming from, but we ran away for fear of death.”
“I went to Rafah to get food for my children like everyone else, even though I’m sick. I have diabetes and high blood pressure. I lost an eye when the Israeli army bombed my home in Khan Younis,” Abu Khammash said. “I can barely walk, but I came here anyway, because hunger is merciless.”
Update: Middle East Monitor reports: “Israeli occupation forces killed ten starving Palestinians and injured 62 more over two days while they gathered in Rafah to receive humanitarian aid, a senior Gaza government official said yesterday according to Anadolu.”
Muhammad Eslayeh gathered testimonies for this report.