A former security contractor for Gaza’s controversial new Israel- and US-backed aid distribution sites has said that he witnessed colleagues opening fire several times on hungry Palestinians who had posed no threat, including with machine guns.
On one occasion, he said, a guard had opened fire from a watchtower with a machine gun because a group of women, children and elderly people was moving too slowly away from the site, according to a report on BBC News website.
When asked to respond the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said the allegations were categorically false.
They referred to a statement saying that no civilians ever came under fire at the GHF distribution sites.
The GHF began its operations in Gaza at the end of May, distributing limited aid from several sites in southern and central Gaza. That followed an 11-week total blockade of Gaza by Israel during which no food entered the territory, prompting warnings of looming famine.
The system has been widely criticised for forcing vast numbers of people to walk through active combat zones to a handful of sites.
Since the GHF started up, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians trying to retrieve food aid from its sites, the UN and local doctors say. Israel says the new distribution system stops aid going to Hamas.
Continuing his description of the incident at one of the GHF sites – in which he said guards fired on a group of Palestinians – the former contractor told BBC: “As that happened, another contractor on location, standing on the berm overlooking the exit, opened up with 15 to 20 shots of repetitive weapons fire at the crowd.
“A Palestinian man dropped to the ground motionless. And then the other contractor who was standing there was like, ‘damn, I think you got one’. And then they laughed about it.”
The contractor said GHF managers brushed off his report as a coincidence, suggesting that the Palestinian man could have ‘tripped’ or been ‘tired and passed out’.
The GHF claimed the former contractor who made these allegation is a ‘disgruntled former contractor’ who they had terminated for misconduct, which he denies.
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