Medical NGO Holds New U.S. Aid Group Responsible for Deadly Chaos in Gaza

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Sunday that patients they was treating at its Gaza aid center operated by a newly-established US-backed nonprofit reported being “shot from all sides” by Israeli forces.

According to the NGO, which is popularly known as MSF in French, the foundation is responsible for the distribution of aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and hence for the chaos in the southern Gaza village of Rafah.

Gaza’s civil defense agency reported that Israeli gunfire resulted in the immediate deaths of 31 Palestinians.

Witnesses said to AFP that the Israeli military fired.

It is believed that the GHF as well as Israeli authorities deny that an incident ever took place, however MSF as well as other doctors have reported treating several residents who were reportedly shot inside Nasser Hospital in the village of Khan Younis.

“Patients told Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) they were fired upon from all directions — including by drones, helicopters, naval vessels, tanks, and Israeli ground forces,” MSF said in a statement.

Claire Manera, the Emergency Coordinator of MSF, deconstructed the method of aid delivery from GHF as one that would go dehumanizing, dangerous, and unbelievably ineffective according to her statement.

“It has led to deaths and injuries to civilians which could have been prevented. Humanitarian aid should be offered only by humanitarian organizations that are competent and determined to carry out their mission safely and efficiently.”

MSF Communications official Nour Alsaqa in the statement said that hospital corridors were filled with patients, mostly males who had “visible gunshot wounds in their limbs.”

MSF reported on one man who was injured, Mansour Sami Abdi, as describing the fight between people over five pallets of aid.

“They told us to take food — then they fired from every direction,” he added. “This isn’t aid. It’s a deceit.”

The Israeli military claimed that an initial investigation found that its soldiers “did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site.”

A GHF spokesperson stated: “These fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas,” the Islamic militant group Israel has promised to eradicate in Gaza.