A Gaza aid site offered a "women only" day. It didn"t stop the killing
The food distribution was announced in advance, like many before it, in a post on social media carrying an illustration of smiling Palestinians receiving boxes of aid.
This time, however, the invitation shared by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was different, featuring illustrations of only women and suggesting that "only women are welcome to come" and that "men should avoid the site".
On Thursday, sisters Mary and Khawla set off early for the aid point in the southern Rafah area. By the time they arrived, the scene was already chaos.
"There was a huge crowd of women and the place seemed out of control, they couldnt offload and distribute the aid," Khawla says. "They started spraying the women with pepper spray, then they brought stun grenades and started throwing them on the women to force them backwards."
The sisters got split up in the mayhem, and when Khawla tried to call Mary, a stranger picked up and told her the owner of the phone had been shot and taken to hospital.
"I called again and this time I was told she was shot in the head. I ran like crazy and called again, but this time I was told the owner of this phone had been killed," Khawla recalls.
Medics at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said later that Mary died from a bullet injury to the neck. She is one of two women known to have been killed on Thursdays "womens day".
As the hunger crisis grows in Gaza, crowds of Palestinians are waiting with empty pots at overwhelmed soup kitchens.
In a translated interview with Reuters in Gaza City, Umm Abdallah al-Sharafy says that shes been waiting since 06:30 this morning for aid.
"I have been here and I haven’t eaten, neither me nor my children and we haven’t drunk as well," she explains.
Umm has a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and she says that "she started to slap herself in the face" when she saw her mother return with an empty pot yesterday.
"I gave her a sip of water to make her stop," she says. "Then our neighbour gave her half a loaf of bread."
"We are living with no food or drink, no food, no bread, not even water. We’re craving even water,” she adds.
