This following excerpt is from just one of the stories in this article. Within this one alone, there is so much tragedy, so much cruelty deliberately caused by other humans–wretched humans who will never be held accountable as long as we allow the Western governments to be complicit in their crimes:
In the early hours of June 11, before sunrise, 19-year-old Hatem Shaldan and his brother Hamza, 23, went to wait for aid trucks near the Netzarim Corridor in the central Gaza Strip. They hoped to return with a bag of white flour for their family of five. Instead, Hamza returned with his younger brother’s body wrapped in a white burial shroud.
The Shaldan family had lived virtually without food for nearly two months due to Israel’s blockade, crammed into a classroom-turned-shelter in eastern Gaza City. Their home, once nearby, was destroyed completely by an Israeli airstrike in January 2024.
At around 1:30 a.m., the two brothers joined dozens of starving Palestinians on Al-Rashid Street along the shore upon hearing that trucks carrying flour would enter the Strip. Two hours later, they heard shouts of “The trucks are coming!” followed immediately by the sound of Israeli artillery shelling.
“We didn’t care about the shelling,” Hamza recounted to +972 Magazine. “We just ran toward the trucks’ lights.”
But in the chaos of the crowd, the brothers got separated. Hamza managed to grab a 25kg bag of flour. When he returned to their agreed-upon meeting spot, Hatem wasn’t there.
“I kept calling his phone, over and over, without answer,” Hamza said. “My heart ached. I began seeing dead bodies being carried over to where I was. I refused to believe my brother might be among them.”
Hours after Hatem went missing, Hamza received a call from a friend: a photo of an unidentified body had surfaced in local Whatsapp groups, taken at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza. Hamza sent a cousin — a tuk-tuk driver — to check. “Half an hour later, he called back, his voice shaking. He told me it was Hatem.”
Upon hearing this, Hamza passed out. When he came to, people were pouring water on his face. He rushed to the hospital, where a man wounded in the same artillery strike explained what had happened: Hatem and about 15 others had tried to hide in tall grass when Israeli tanks opened fire.
“Hatem was hit by shrapnel in his legs,” the man said. “He bled for hours. Dogs circled them. Eventually, when more aid trucks arrived, people helped move the bodies onto one of them.”
In total, 25 Palestinians were killed that morning waiting for aid trucks on Al-Rashid Street. Hamza brought Hatem’s body back to Gaza City and buried him beside their mother, who was killed by an Israeli sniper in August 2024. Their older brother, Khalid, 21, had died months earlier — in a January airstrike while evacuating wounded civilians on his horse cart.
Another:
Yousef Abu Jalila, 38, used to rely on humanitarian aid distributed through the WFP to feed his family of 10. But no such package has arrived in over two months, and the price of what little remains in the markets has skyrocketed.
Now sheltering in a tent in Al-Yarmouk Stadium in central Gaza City, after their home in the Sheikh Zayed neighborhood was destroyed during the Israeli army’s October 2024 incursion into northern Gaza, he told +972: “My children cry to me that they’re hungry, and I have nothing to feed them.”
With no white flour or remnants of canned food, Abu Jalila has no choice but to show up at the aid distribution points or wait for the aid trucks. “I know I might be one of those killed while trying to get food for my family,” Abu Jalila told +972. “But I go, because my family is starving.”
On June 14, Abu Jalila left the tent camp with a group of neighbors after hearing rumors that aid trucks might arrive in the Equestrian club area in the northwestern part of the Gaza Strip. When he got there, he was surprised to find thousands of others hoping to bring back food for their families.
As the hours passed, the crowd drifted closer to an Israeli military position. Then, without warning, several Israeli artillery shells exploded in the middle of the gathering.
“I still don’t know how I survived it,” Abu Jalila said. “Dozens of people were killed, their bodies torn to pieces. Many others were wounded.”
In the chaos, some fled in panic while others scrambled to load the dead and injured onto donkey carts as there were no ambulances or cars nearby. “One young man was blown in half; others had their limbs ripped off,” Abu Jalila recalled. “These were innocent people, unarmed, just trying to get food. Why kill them this way?”
Shaken and empty-handed, Abu Jalila walked four hours back to Gaza City, his legs trembling. When he reached the tent, his children were already outside, waiting. “They were hoping I’d bring food,” he said. “I wished I could die rather than see the disappointment in their eyes.”
Delete the middle east.
Elaborate.
Nah, I’m good.
Don’t be shy now.
Listen Muhammed, I’m not going to play your and Shlomo’s little games.
Troll.
Elaborate.
