'Forced disappearances' suspected in US aid group centres in Gaza

In Gaza, a land already ravaged by siege and war, food distribution centres run by a new US-backed organisation are turning into deadly traps, where military violence and forced disappearances are unleashed with impunity by Israel against desperate Palestinians.

On 26 May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), operated by a private US security firm contracted by the US government, began distributing aid at four locations across Gaza, three in the south and one near the centre.

While branded as "humanitarian relief," the reality was starkly different. Israeli soldiers encircled the sites, heavy weaponry drawn and ready; drones and surveillance aircraft hovered menacingly overhead; and cameras monitored every movement of the starving civilians gathering below.

Thousands of hungry Palestinians, many displaced, exhausted, and desperate, flocked to aid distribution points across Gaza, clinging to the fragile hope of securing a morsel of food amid Israel's relentless siege.

But this hope turned into a nightmare at a distribution centre in Rafah as a massacre unfolded. 

As dawn broke on Sunday, a crowd of Palestinians assembled, exhausted and starving, only to be faced with a brutal backlash by the Israeli military. Dozens of bodies were strewn across the ground, lifeless, amid the chaos. The metallic stench of blood mixed with the bitter smell of dry, untouched bread.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defence, confirmed the toll: intense Israeli army fire killed at least 31 people and wounded more than 176.

"These people were just hungry," Basal told The New Arab. "They did not carry weapons. Suddenly, tanks and aircraft opened fire."

On Monday, the grim scene repeated itself. Hundreds more Palestinians converged on another distribution point in Rafah, only to be met again with Israeli gunfire. This second assault killed three Palestinians and wounded more than 40 others, according to Basal.

The United Nations distanced itself from the US aid group, citing violations of fundamental humanitarian principles and accusing the operation of weaponising aid under the guise of relief.

Sobheia Shurrab, a mother desperately searching for her son at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis City in the south of Gaza, voiced omnipresent despair: "If those who deliver us food are the ones killing us, then what hope do we have? Our enemy wears the mask of a saviour."

Aid workers and witnesses describe scenes of chaos and terror: civilians left exposed amid gunfire, surrounded by armed soldiers, with no protection or safe passage.

The killings by Israel are not isolated incidents. The Palestinian Centre for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared issued a stark warning: tens of displaced Palestinians who approached Israeli-run or Israeli-backed distribution sites near front lines have vanished without trace.

"These people have not returned to their tents," Ghazi al-Majdalawi, head of research at the Centre, told TNA. "Their names do not appear on martyr lists or hospital records. Families are living a nightmare, waiting and searching."

"This echoes the dark history of 1948, when Israel established mass detention camps for Palestinians. Today, the pattern repeats under the cover of humanitarian aid. We believe many detainees are secretly held at military checkpoints. This is a full-fledged crime of enforced disappearance," he added.

Mohammed, a Palestinian man based in Khan Younis, who preferred not to mention his family name, recounted the final moments before his friends vanished. "There was a man in plain clothes watching people carefully. After the chaos, I heard shouting in languages other than Arabic. Someone yelled, 'Raise your hands.' Then silence. I ran away and made it back, but my comrades… they disappeared."

Mohammed's attempts to reach the families of the missing have been met with silence and heartbreak.

"Umm Ibrahim, the mother of one of my friends, has been sitting in front of the field hospital for two days, asking every injured person if they have seen her son. She has no idea where to look. All she has is a torn photo on an old phone," he described. 

Fears are mounting that these aid centres serve as a space for intelligence gathering and targeted arrests.

Separately speaking to TNA, local eyewitnesses said that "surveillance cameras planted at distribution sites, inspection teams verifying identities before handing out food," suggesting a calculated operation to single out and detain those deemed security threats.

Human rights advocates warn that these tactics represent systematically enforced disappearances cloaked in humanitarianism.

"We plan to submit evidence to the United Nations and Human Rights Council," Hazem Afana, a Gaza-based lawyer, told TNA, arguing that this is a deliberate, state-orchestrated policy.

In a tent near Khan Younis, Huda Helmi clutches a photo of her 17-year-old son Raed, who vanished four days ago after going to the distribution centre in Rafah.

"He went to wait in line for food. He never came back," she recalled. "We searched everywhere. Is he alive? Is he hungry? Is he suffering? Nobody answers. It's as if our children were vaporised."

Local and international organisations are raising alarms over these flagrant breaches of international law. Political analyst Hussam al-Dajani urged urgent intervention, "Using aid centres to arrest or forcibly disappear civilians is a grave violation. The UN, which coordinates relief, must investigate what’s happening on the ground."

For families like Adnan Surur's, who share a single nylon tent with 17 relatives in Al-Mawasi, the trauma is constant.

"We went to get food, and suddenly planes bombed us, and shooting started," Adnan told TNA, saying. "People pushed and fell over each other. Why are they calling us to kill us? It's a plot to humiliate us."

Humiliation has become part of daily life under occupation. "We stand for hours just to receive a tin of tuna," he said. "If we turn around, we're punished. If we move, we're beaten. If we complain, we're arrested."

Rescue teams face near-impossible conditions. Roads are destroyed, fuel scarce, and gunfire is ongoing. "We carry wounded and dead on donkey carts because we have no ambulances or safe passage," a Civil Defence member told TNA. "We run under fire with bodies in our hands. What kind of world is this?"

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini called the situation a "death trap" not just bullets or bombs, but a complex machinery of systematic humiliation, enforced disappearances, and the stripping of human dignity.

The Ministry of Health reported that at least 75 people have been killed and more than 400 wounded by Israeli forces at these distribution points since they began operating a week ago, prompting widespread calls to end what many are calling a "barbaric system" of aid delivery.