Gaza’s ‘death race’: hundreds killed in desperate dash for food aid

Like Squid Game. That is how residents describe it, invoking the dystopian TV show when recounting the lethal gauntlet that getting aid in famine-haunted Gaza has become.

“It’s a death race. The faster, the stronger, the luckier – they’re the ones who might survive, might reach the food,” said 30-year-old Mohammed al-Shaqra.

“It feels like we’re animals, racing for a box of supplies as if our lives depend on it. And they do.”

Ever since Israel sidelined the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations late last month and tasked assistance operations to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an opaque US and Israeli-backed private contractor registered in Delaware, killing has been the near-daily companion of aid deliveries.

On Thursday, health authorities in Gaza said 12 people were killed near a GHF distribution centre, a relatively low toll in a week that saw 59 killed in similar circumstances on Tuesday. Since the foundation began its work on May 26, more than 400 people have been killed and more than 3,000 wounded.