Palestinian Territory – Israel's so-called aid distribution mechanism in the Gaza Strip, set to become operational this week, violates international law. Under the pretext of allowing the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid to residents of the besieged enclave, the mechanism is designed to persecute Palestinians and forcibly displace them from large parts of the Strip while consolidating Israeli military control. It also serves to mislead international public opinion, which is finally beginning to confront the catastrophic, Israeli-made humanitarian crisis in the enclave.
All available information about the new Israeli mechanism clearly indicates that it is designed as a tool of coercive control over the Gaza Strip's civilian population. It limits families to just one aid parcel per week under highly restrictive security conditions, thus violating the principles of non-discrimination, adequacy, and continuity in humanitarian aid. Far from meeting the criteria for neutral and effective relief, the mechanism will function as a means of subjugating Palestinian society by controlling people's access to their most basic survival needs.
The mechanism is designed to forcibly displace residents of the North Gaza and Gaza Governorates—home to nearly half of the Strip's population—to the central and southern areas, where the distribution centres will be located. It also subjects all heads of households to strict security checks, putting them at risk of illegal enforced disappearance or arbitrary arrest, particularly given the presence of Israeli forces near the distribution sites and along the access roads.
As the Israeli mechanism violates international law and basic standards of relief by using aid as a tool for control and displacement, it fundamentally lacks legal legitimacy as well as validity as a humanitarian endeavour
As the Israeli mechanism violates international law and basic standards of relief by using aid as a tool for control and displacement, it fundamentally lacks legal legitimacy as well as validity as a humanitarian endeavour. In practice, it is completely unworkable: Israel's military has designated only four distribution centres for the over two million people trapped in the Gaza Strip, amid a blanket ban on aid and goods since 2 March.
Such limited distribution is not a genuine humanitarian response, but a deliberate policy aimed at barely managing hunger, rather than actually alleviating it. Israel plans to systematically control a scarce flow of food to keep the enclave's population in a state of ongoing destitution, exploiting their basic survival needs as tools of pressure and control to forcibly displace them.
According to circulating information, Israel's army has established one distribution point south of its "Netzarim Corridor" in the central Gaza Strip, and three others in the far south, between the "Morag" and "Philadelphi" corridors. This forces a representative from each family across the Strip's five governorates to travel up to 30 kilometres every week to access limited food aid. The hardship will be compounded by the lack of paved roads, extremely high cost or total absence of transportation, and continued Israeli ban on vehicle traffic on Al-Rashid Street—the only route currently open for civilian movement between the north and south—following Israel's closure of Salah al-Din Road in eastern Gaza.
In addition to the arduous journey, residents must travel these distances under the constant threat of bombardment and targeting by Israeli forces. This turns humanitarian aid into a burden rather than a lifeline, making it inaccessible to the starving, the sick, and the elderly. Such conditions strip humanitarian action of its meaning and reveal the genocidal nature of the new Israeli mechanism, which deliberately disregards the principles of safe access, protection, and human dignity.
According to the assessment of Euro-Med Monitor's field team, deployed across the Gaza Strip, the four centres established by the Israeli army are incapable of meeting the population's needs in any safe or effective manner.
Prior to the start of the ongoing genocide, United Nations agencies and international relief organisations relied on approximately 400 distribution points spread across neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip's cities and towns, but Israel has prevented them from continuing their work. Even when these distribution points were widespread, required no security checks, and presented no deliberate obstacles, however, residents still had to wait for long hours to receive their food rations. This demonstrates that meeting the population's current needs will be impossible under a restrictive and centralised system controlled by the occupying power.
In a statement to Euro-Med Monitor, Ahmed Samir, 30, the sole provider for a family of five, said: "When I heard about the new aid mechanism, I felt angry and frustrated. I live in the northern part of Gaza City, and I am definitely unable to travel every week to central or southern Gaza to collect aid that might not quell my family's hunger."
Samir called the journey "a risk with unpredictable consequences". He continued, "Even if I manage to get there safely, who can guarantee that the Israeli army will let me return to northern Gaza after receiving aid? I've endured months of bombing and starvation just to avoid fleeing to the southern Gaza Strip—[so] I certainly won't do that now. But at the same time, I'm in desperate need of assistance.
"When well-known relief organisations previously distributed aid, I would walk to the distribution centre about a kilometre from my shelter, using a small handcart to transport the food parcel, which typically weighed around 20 kilograms," Samir explained. Under the new mechanism, it will be "impossible to travel such a long and dangerous distance", he said. "More than anything, I want a return to the previous system of aid distribution—and above all, an end to the war."
In a separate statement to Euro-Med Monitor, a journalist, who requested anonymity due to safety concerns, said: "I work for a local news website. [Earlier in] the war, the Israeli occupation destroyed my home in the Khan Yunis camp in the southern Gaza Strip. I'm now displaced in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where my wife's family lives.
"We are struggling severely to meet our food needs. We have a few canned goods that we bought at an exorbitant price, but our flour is nearly gone, and we have no reserves. I haven't benefited from the limited aid that has entered in recent days," he continued.
"At the same time, I'm following, with concern, the reports about the Israeli plan to distribute aid at designated points under the protection of an American security company, in areas where occupation forces are present," the journalist told Euro-Med Monitor. "I don't think I can go there and risk my life, especially as the occupation forces have turned journalists into targets for killing and arrest."
The journalist added: "I am a civilian, but who can guarantee my safety if I go there? My family and I will endure more hunger until real humanitarian solutions are found. I hope there are other options. We have had a very good experience with UNRWA, so why is it being sidelined? There are 10s of thousands of families who will be unable to access food under this plan. Does that mean they—and we—are condemned to starve to death?"
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly stated that the displacement of the population from the Gaza Strip is one of his government's conditions for halting military operations in the enclave. At the same time, Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister and member of the Security and Political Cabinet, declared that the Israeli army is working to demolish all buildings in the Strip and to crowd the population into a narrow section of Rafah as a step toward their expulsion from the enclave and the consequent Israeli takeover of it.
Israel, as the occupying power, is legally obligated under international humanitarian law to ensure the entry of enough humanitarian aid to meet the needs of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. However, this obligation does not grant it any right to manage or control the distribution of that aid. The responsibility for aid distribution must rest exclusively with neutral and specialised humanitarian agencies. Any military or political interference in this process by Israel constitutes a serious violation of international law, undermines the humanitarian nature of relief efforts, and transforms aid into a tool of blackmail used to subjugate the entire besieged population.
The Israeli government uses starvation as a central tool in its genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which is intended to eliminate them as a group, and therefore cannot in any way be party to the process of humanitarian aid distribution. Israel's involvement in organising or overseeing aid delivery will inevitably turn aid into a mechanism for controlling the population's fate. Imposing a coercive environment devoid of basic survival resources will undoubtedly pave the way for the expulsion of Gazans from their land, and is plainly part of the broader Israeli colonial project aimed at erasing Palestinians' existence and forcibly annexing their territory.
The refusal of UN agencies and independent international relief organisations to cooperate with the Israeli mechanism, due to its failure to meet even the most basic humanitarian standards, should serve as a clear warning and a strong incentive for all states to intensify pressure on Israel. This pressure must aim to ensure the immediate and unconditional flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, to end the use of any mechanisms that serve as tools of repression and displacement, and to take urgent action toward halting the ongoing genocide against the population of the Strip since October 2023.
All states must immediately restore humanitarian access and lift the unlawful Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, as this is the only way to halt the rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis and ensure the entry of aid and essential goods amid the imminent threat of famine. States must also work to establish safe humanitarian corridors under UN supervision to guarantee the delivery of food, medicine, and fuel to all areas of the Strip, along with the deployment of independent international monitors to verify compliance.
The international community must also impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel and its more powerful allies, particularly the United States, for such egregious violations of international law. These sanctions should include arms embargoes; a ban on the export and import of parts, software, and dual-use goods; an end to all political, financial, and military support; freezing the assets of officials involved in crimes against Palestinians and imposing travel bans on these officials; suspending the operations of Israeli and US military and security industries companies in international markets and freezing their assets; and suspending trade privileges and bilateral agreements that provide Israel and the US with economic benefits that enable their continued crimes against the Palestinian people.
