GAZA — The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has called for US President Donald Trump to face criminal prosecution for being complicit in the controversial aid distribution system in Gaza, where Israeli forces and American contractors have carried out mass killings of starving civilians seeking aid.
In a statement, the Geneva-based organisation urged international bodies to hold Trump accountable for supporting the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which is responsible for distributing aid in Gaza and backed by Israel and the US.
The monitoring group said that testimony from the field indicated the involvement of private US security contractors in the attacks on aid seekers, alongside Israeli soldiers.
On Saturday, a video footage was widely circulated on social media, showing a security personnel affiliated with GHF directly throwing grenades at civilians gathered around an aid distribution point.
A massacre took place that day near an aid distribution point in the Al-Shakoush area north of Rafah city, and resulted in the killing of 30 Palestinians and the injury of over 18 others after three Israeli tanks “each armed with machine guns and accompanied by around 30 heavily armed infantry soldiers and snipers,” began firing stun grenades over the starving people and opening heavy fire directly at them.
An American soldier part of the GHF is seen directly firing tear gas at Palestinian aid seekers at an alleged aid distribution center in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/z5LQMwwhCi
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) July 12, 2025
“This serves as further evidence of the foundation’s involvement in systematic violence against starving residents and its active participation in the commission of grave international crimes,” Euro-Med Monitor said.
It added the international and national judicial bodies must move to hold US President Donald Trump criminally accountable for his “complicity in the genocide” in Gaza.
This includes his “adoption and direct support of the Israeli aid distribution mechanism, imposed by force and transformed into arenas of mass slaughter against starving civilians, as well as his administration’s full-scale provision of military, financial, political, and diplomatic backing that enabled Israel to commit and expand the crime for over 21 months.”
Since the GHF started its operations on May 27 in Gaza, over 788 aid seekers have been killed and over 5,199 others injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry on Friday.
Additionally, 41 others have been reported missing after heading to the GHF sites to obtain food.
Israeli mass killings of aid seekers near GHF aid sites have become a grim daily reality amid chaotic scenes, as desperate Palestinians are given only a narrow window to rush for food and are targeted by Israeli forces.
Palestinians in Gaza and the UN described these sites as “mass death traps” and “slaughterhouses”.
On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, according to reports by human rights organisations who have accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinains.
An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report in May warned that almost a quarter of the civilian population would face catastrophic levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase Five) in the coming months.
After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the GHF, a scandal-plagued organization backed by the US and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques. They have also said the model would increase forced displacement in Gaza.
The UN confirmed that Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians with only a few trucks of aid having reached Gaza.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that “weaponizing aid in this manner may constitute crimes against humanity.”
“Every day Palestinians are met with carnage in their attempts to receive supplies from the insufficient amount of aid trickling into Gaza,” MSF said.
The commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, condemned the “lethal” US-Israel aid distribution mechanism in Gaza. In a post on X, Lazzarini indicated that Palestinian lives “have been so devalued”.
“It is now the routine to shoot & kill desperate & starving people while they try to collect little food from a company made of mercenaries,” he said.
“Inviting starving people to their death is a war crime. Those responsible of this system must be held accountable. This is a disgrace & a stain on our collective consciousness.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the US-backed aid distribution mechanism is “inherently unsafe” and “it is killing people.”
“Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people,” Guterres told reporters.
Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being “strangled,” aid workers themselves are starving and Israel, as the occupying power, is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave.
“People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence,” Guterres told reporters.
According to a Haaretz report, conversations with officers and soldiers reveal that commanders ordered forces to shoot at crowds waiting for food near or at the US-backed GHF aid sites to drive them away or disperse them, despite posing no threat.
“It’s a killing field,” one soldier said.
“Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.”
In a recent statement, the Israeli military admitted that its forces “harmed” Palestinian civilians at US-Israeli aid distribution centers in Gaza. The army claimed new field instructions were issued based on “lessons learned.”
A new Associated Press report with leaked footage also detailed how American contractors at GHF aid sites used live ammunition, stun grenades and pepper spray against starving Palestinians seeking food.
C. QNN
