(LONDON) — Gazans camped out close to a humanitarian aid distribution site near the city of Rafah on Wednesday night, as a controversial U.S.- and Israel-backed project to distribute food in the devastated Palestinian territory expanded.
Local journalists told ABC News that thousands of people gathered at the site northeast of Rafah in the hope of receiving food aid, but there was not enough to satisfy demand when distribution began on Thursday.
The site is located close to the Morag corridor — a strip of land controlled by the Israel Defense Forces separating the Gazan cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.
Videos from the site showed large crowds of Gazans rushing to collect aid, carrying boxes stamped with the mark of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF — which is directing the aid distribution in collaboration with the American and Israeli governments.
“It is very difficult, we want to eat, we want to live — what should we do?” one man said when speaking with Reuters.
Another man left the site empty-handed, telling Reuters, “Every time I go, I hold a box, a hundred people crowd over me, 300. I could not take anything.”
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continued across the strip. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that 67 people were killed and 184 people injured by Israeli action over the previous 24 hours.
The latest casualties bring the total toll in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, to 54,249 people killed and 123,492 injured, the ministry said.
The Israeli government had been implementing a blockade on all humanitarian aid being sent into Gaza since March 2. The blockade was instituted to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages, Israel said. Hamas still holds 58 hostages, with about one-third of them believed to be alive, according to The Associated Press.
The blockade has caused widespread malnutrition and conditions likely to lead to famine, according to the U.N. and other international aid organizations. Two million people in the Gaza Strip face “extreme hunger and famine without immediate action,” the U.N.’s World Food Programme, or WFP, said last week.
Last week, Israel began allowing small amounts of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, approving GHF’s responsibility for distribution. Israel had demanded a new aid distribution system, having accused Hamas of previously siphoning off aid.
GHF — launched earlier this year and run by U.S. security contractors, former military officers and humanitarian workers — has set up a handful of hubs protected by armed contractors close to IDF positions. Gazans have been told to travel to the hubs to collect aid.
The United Nations and other humanitarian aid groups have refused to take part in the new effort, citing concerns that it will allow Israel to control — and weaponize — aid supply.
WFP, for example, said it “cannot safely operate under a distribution system that limits the number of bakeries and sites where Gaza’s population can access food. WFP and its partners must also be allowed to distribute food parcels directly to families — the most effective way to prevent widespread starvation.”
GHF Executive Director Jake Wood resigned earlier this week, saying in a statement it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”
GHF on Wednesday denied reports that it was forced to pause operations after thousands of Palestinians overran one of its aid distribution sites in Gaza on Tuesday.
The group said its “operations will continue to scale up” on Thursday, having distributed a total of eight trucks worth of aid — enough for 378,262 meals — on Wednesday.
GHF later said that three of its sites were operational on Thursday, distributing around 997,920 meals. That brought the total number of meals distributed to approximately 1,838,182, GHF’s statement said.
However, multiple aid organizations and nongovernmental organizations have said the aid distributed so far is just a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed.
ABC News’ Helena Skinner, Diaa Ostaz, Joe Simonetti, Nadine El-Bawab, Camilla Alcini and Will Gretsky contributed to this report.
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