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flour massacre
Amnesty Implores Israel to Stop 'Starvation of Civilians as a Method of War'
The plea came amid Israel's killing of desperate, starving Palestinians trying to secure food and other lifesaving humanitarian aid.
Jun 02, 2025
As Israeli forces continued to kill and wound desperate, starving Palestinians at humanitarian aid distribution points in the Gaza Strip, Amnesty International on Monday implored Israel to stop weaponizing starvation and called on the world's nations to "take positive action to end the genocide," including to "stop arming Israel and pressure it to unconditionally lift its cruel blockade" on the embattled enclave.
"The horrific incident in Rafah yesterday in which Israeli forces shot at starved Palestinians attempting to receive food near a militarized distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation demands an immediate, independent investigation," Amnesty said on social media.
Hundreds of Palestinians were reportedly killed or wounded in the attack, which Amnesty said evoked the so-called "flour massacres" of February and March 2024.
"As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under international law to ensure provision of essential supplies to the occupied population."
As was the case following Israeli forces' killing of at least 118 Palestinians and wounding of 760 others during the February 29, 2024 massacre of aid-seeking people, Israel has denied responsibility for Sunday's attack in Rafah. Bullet wounds caused by the same type of large-caliber ammunition used in several Israel Defense Force (IDF)-issued rifles and machine guns undercut Israeli officials' dubious claim that most flour massacre victims died in a "stampede."
On Monday, IDF troops reportedly opened fire on Palestinians gathered to receive aid near Rafah, killing at least three people and wounding 35 others.
The Palestine Chronicle reported Monday that "at least 52 Palestinians have been killed and over 300 wounded in Israeli attacks on or near" aid distribution points since May 27.
"Aid distribution must be conducted through safe, dignified, and effective means, managed by professional humanitarian workers, not
security contractors," Amnesty stressed. "As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under international law to ensure provision of essential supplies to the occupied population."
Last year, the International Court of Justice—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel—found that Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestine, including the Gaza Strip, is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible.
"The international community, notably led by the [United States], has permitted this appalling humanitarian catastrophe and genocide to unfold for far too long," Amnesty said Monday. "The use of starvation of civilians as a method of war is a war crime that the global community must urgently put an end to."
The U.S. under both former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump has approved tens of billions of dollars in armed aid for Israel and has provided diplomatic cover, such as United Nations Security Council vetoes and pressure on nations to eschew recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Amnesty added that nations must act to pressure Israel into ending its onslaught and blockade of Gaza, which has been blamed for fueling at least hundreds of deaths from malnutrition and lack of medical care. Overall, Gaza officials say that Israel's nearly 20-month bombing, invasion, and siege of Gaza have left more than 192,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in the strip and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
IDF attacks reportedly killed more than 50 Palestinians since dawn Monday, with northern Gaza's
only functioning kidney dialysis center among the locations targeted for destruction.
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As US Aid Shipments Begin, Gaza Pier Denounced as 'PR Move'
"It's completely absurd," said one humanitarian worker. "The solution to the problem here is obvious."
May 17, 2024
As humanitarian shipments began trickling into Gaza via a U.S.-built temporary floating pier, Palestinians and aid workers on Friday renewed criticism of what they called an expensive and largely ineffectual publicity stunt that is no substitute for a cease-fire and opening of more land crossings into the besieged coastal enclave.
U.S. Army Central Command said that "trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore" at around 9:00 am local time Friday as part of "an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor."
The $320 million Trident Pier—which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore—is expected to eventually accommodate up to 150 trucks per day. According to United Nations agencies, an average of 200 trucks entered Gaza each day last month, far fewer than the prewar daily mean of more than 500 truckloads that U.S. and U.N. officials say are required to meet the needs of a population facing critical shortages of food, water, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies.
"We don't want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety."
However, as famine grips northern Gaza—with malnutrition and dehydration killing dozens of people, mostly children—and at least hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians starve, Israel has been accused of blocking aid from those who desperately need it and using starvation as a weapon of war.
"We don't want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety. We want official borders," Hassan Abu Al-Kass, a forcibly displaced Palestinian man, told The New York Times on Thursday.
Al-Kass compared the pier to the humanitarian aid airdropped by U.S. and other troops over Gaza, whose officials
say that more than 20 people have been killed by the parachuting parcels, either by crushing or drowning while trying to reach offshore drops.
"Those planes, as well, that they bring here with the parachutes, and they throw food at us like dogs, like beggars, that does not work," he said. "It falls on houses. It falls on people. It brings us problems."
One unnamed humanitarian aid worker
told U.S. investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill: "It's completely absurd. The solution to the problem here is obvious and we need to end the occupation... Once the siege is lifted, humanitarian aid can roll in. A pier is a PR move."
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said Thursday that "to stave off the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious route to reach the people of Gaza—and for that, we need access by land now."
Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor noted on social media Thursday that "no major humanitarian organization has asked for this pier, and most see it as a costly distraction that will do little to make a dent in meeting Gaza's overwhelming humanitarian needs."
"For that," he added, "you need a cease-fire and open border crossings and less military obstruction."
According to a report published last month, officials at the United States Agency for International Development concluded in a confidential memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel is violating a White House directive by blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Critics pointed to the leaked memo as more evidence that the Biden administration is breaking the law by supporting Israel's assault on Gaza—which Palestinian and international officials say has killed, wounded, or left missing more than 125,000 people—with arms and diplomatic cover.
Parties to the South African-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, as well as human rights groups, accuse Israel of flouting the ICJ's January 26 preliminary ruling ordering the Israeli government to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and ensure immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. Israel rejects charges of genocide and blocking aid.
Hundreds of U.N. and other aid workers—overwhelmingly Palestinians—have also been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7. Israeli troops have been accused of deliberately attacking both humanitarian workers and Palestinians trying to receive aid, including in the February 29 "Flour Massacre," in which nearly 900 starving Gazans were killed or wounded while waiting for food distribution south of Gaza City.
Critics have slammed U.S. President Joe Biden for offering token aid to Gazans with one hand while lavishing Israel with billions of dollars of weaponry used to kill Palestinians with the other.
Earlier this month, Biden said he would stop sending bombs, artillery shells, and other arms to Israel in the event of a major invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled Gaza Strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents.
However, as Israeli air and ground attacks pound the southern city, killing civilians including 22 members of one family in a single strike, Biden—who previously implored Israel to stop its "indiscriminate bombing" of Palestinian noncombatants—informed Congress this week that his administration will soon send another $1 billion in arms and ammunition, including tank and mortar rounds, to the Israel Defense Forces.
This, despite the Biden administration last week
acknowledging "reasonable" evidence that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in the commission of war crimes in Gaza, with the caveat that "we are not able to reach definitive conclusions" on the matter.
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12 Palestinians Drown Trying to Retrieve Airdropped Gaza Aid From Sea
One campaigner called the incident "another deadly example of why airdrops are not the answer to famine in Gaza."
Mar 26, 2024
Human rights defenders on Tuesday pointed to the drowning deaths of 12 Palestinians trying to retrieve humanitarian aid parcels airdropped off the Gaza shore as yet another reason why Israel must stop blocking aid from entering the embattled strip by land.
Video published on social media shows Palestinians running toward the Mediterranean Sea in Beit Lahia as aid parcels parachute downward. Eyewitness Abu Mohammad told CNN that the people who drowned "don't know how to swim."
"There were strong currents and all the parachutes fell in the water," Mohammad said. "People want to eat and are hungry. I haven't been able to receive anything."
Ramy Abdu, chair of the Geneva-based group Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, said that some of the victims died after becoming entangled in parachute ropes.
BREAKING| 9 Palestinians drowned and 5 others missing in the Sea of Gaza while trying to get humanitarian airdrop aid due to falling into the sea. pic.twitter.com/tSPpbrKsTg
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) March 26, 2024
According to the U.S. military—which along with Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Singapore has been airdropping aid into Gaza—parachute malfunctions caused three of the 80 parcels dropped to land in the sea. The Pentagon did not say which country carried out the drop.
Earlier this month, five children were crushed to death and numerous other Palestinians were injured by U.S.-airdropped parcels on which the parachutes apparently malfunctioned.
The airdrops come amid widespread and increasingly deadly starvation in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been accused of using hunger as a weapon of war. Last month, Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, called Israel's forced starvation of Gazans part of "a situation of genocide" in the besieged enclave, where more than 114,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7 and around 2 million people out of a population of 2.3 million have been forcibly displaced.
While Israel claims there are no limits on aid entering Gaza by land, Israeli officials said Monday that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East trucks would be blocked from entering northern Gaza. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked aid convoys and their police escorts, forcing UNRWA to suspend humanitarian deliveries.
Israeli forces have also on several occasions attacked starving Palestinians as they desperately attempt to get food for their families, including in the February 29 "
Flour Massacre" that left more than 870 Gazans dead or wounded.
Also blocking humanitarian aid from reaching starving Palestinians are Israeli civilians who have camped at border crossings to prevent convoys from entering Gaza. Last month, right-wing extremists set up a giant inflatable children's bouncy castle where aid trucks are meant to pass through the Kerem Shalom border crossing in an effort to lend a festive atmosphere to the action.
Medical Aid for Palestinians, a London-based humanitarian group, said Tuesday that "airdrops will not end famine and are a dangerous proposed 'solution.'"
Palestinians in Gaza expressed similar sentiments.
"We call for the opening of the crossings in a proper fashion," Mohammad told CNN, "but these humiliating methods are not acceptable."
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