MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today marks the 600th day of Israel's war in Gaza, launched in response to the October 7 attack. In the war since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed, including hundreds more from Israeli airstrikes in the past several days.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now, yesterday, Israel implemented a new U.S.-backed plan to control the distribution of aid in Gaza. Hungry crowds swarmed a site where food was supposed to be distributed. Israel says it fired warning shots, while witnesses say people were shot there. In a few minutes, we'll hear from a former Israeli prime minister who now says his country is committing war crimes. We begin with the latest news.
MARTIN: Joining us now to tell us what happened and more about this new plan is NPR correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai. Hello, Aya. Thanks for joining us once again.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Thanks, Michel.
MARTIN: Could you just start by telling us what happened in Gaza at this distribution site yesterday?
BATRAWY: Yeah. There are these two fenced-in areas that were created for people to walk to several miles and pick up parcels of food. And so this comes after three months of - nearly three months of total blockade by Israel, with no food entering the territory and experts saying hundreds of thousands of people are now facing starvation. So what happened on the first day of this new distribution system backed by the U.S. is that thousands of hungry people overran one of these fenced-in areas where American contractors were standing guard to distribute boxes of food. Witnesses say the contractors fled, and the crowds just took everything they could, even scrap metal. The contractors, in a statement, say they fell back according to protocol. Witnesses say an Israeli helicopter then opened fire in the area, dispersing the crowd. Israel says its troops fired warning shots. Hospital officials tell NPR nearly 50 people were wounded and three were killed as a result of the gunfire.
MARTIN: Was there any system in place before the crowd swarmed this site?
BATRAWY: Well, in a statement, Hamas says this incident reflects Israel's failure to manage the humanitarian crisis that it deliberately created. Israel says its aim is to keep aid from Hamas. But we spoke to witnesses on the ground who were at this scene, who said there was no screening at all. Anyone could just take the boxes of food. Abu Mahmoud Abaza (ph), who was at the site to get food, told NPR about the scene, and he says it was chaotic.
ABU MAHMOUD ABAZA: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: He says, "there was no distribution system. It was chaos." He says, "nobody asked for IDs or anything." He says, "people are hungry, and there has to be a better way to get food." So again, unlike how the U.N. distributes food or used to distribute food in centers across Gaza, with IDs and lists of families in need, this system had none of that. There were no screenings or lists and no clarity on who decides who gets the aid and who doesn't.
MARTIN: And what's Israel saying about all this?
BATRAWY: Well, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, defended the system. He says it's working.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Very hard for Hamas to steal it, especially because we guard this position. Well, we tried the first one. We're going to put many today. There was some loss of control momentarily. Happily, we brought it back under control. We're going to put many more of these.
BATRAWY: But one thing to note, too, Michel, is that he says the aim is not just to keep aid from Hamas but to push the entire population south. And Israel says from there, people can be relocated out of Gaza.
MARTIN: And so what do we know about the situation now? Are people getting food?
BATRAWY: Most people in Gaza are living off just one meal a day. It's mostly just lentil soup. Aid groups are being blocked by Israel from bringing aid in at scale, and these aid organizations, like the U.N. and others, are refusing to take part in this new plan, saying it's politicizing aid. The Trump administration, though, says it supports the plan and says the U.N. and other aid groups are wrong to criticize it. They say 8,000 boxes of food were distributed yesterday, although it's unclear how much of that was actually just taken in the mayhem. You know, each box feeds around five to six people for just 3 1/2 days, but again, people have to walk for miles south to get this food. No food also has reached Gaza City. None of these distribution sites are in the north. And so, you know, you have several trucks of food just yesterday night carrying food intended for Gaza City for the first time in months taken by hungry crowds in central Gaza right off the trucks.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Aya Batrawy. Aya, thank you.
BATRAWY: Thank you, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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