‘Systematic Starvation And Destruction’: Nearly 800 Palestinians Killed At US-Run Aid Points In Gaza As Israel Expands Evacuation Orders And Demolitions.

At least 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food aid in Gaza since late May, the United Nations Human Rights Office confirmed this week, citing data reported by Reuters. Of those, 615 were slain near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution points, while another 183 died along aid convoy routes. The figures underscore what rights groups and humanitarian agencies have increasingly described as a deliberate strategy of starvation and mass displacement, targeting an already besieged civilian population under the guise of military operations.

The bulk of these aid sites, nominally operated or coordinated by international actors, including the United States, have become scenes of massacres and chaos, as desperate families gather in the hope of receiving dwindling food supplies. The UN’s stark numbers follow repeated Israeli strikes on food lines and convoys, which US military contractors and surveillance systems have reportedly helped coordinate in recent months.

Meanwhile, dozens more Palestinians were injured overnight in the Mawasi area of southern Gaza, previously designated a “safe zone” by the Israeli military. Strikes hit shelters and tent encampments packed with internally displaced people, some of whom had fled there only days earlier after being forced from northern areas.

Mass Displacement Orders In Gaza City:

On Friday, Israeli forces issued new forced expulsion orders for several neighbourhoods in Gaza City, including Tel al-Hawa and southern Rimal, areas that had already become makeshift shelters for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians. The Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces ordered civilians to evacuate “immediately,” warning of imminent attacks.

Residents expressed outrage and despair, with many telling Wafa they refused to move, arguing that no part of the Strip is safe and that Israel’s bombardments have followed them to every declared “humanitarian zone.”

According to an analysis by Al Jazeera, Israel’s serial evacuation orders have effectively corralled Gaza’s population into just 74.4 square kilometres, or about 20 percent of the territory, pushing civilians into ever-denser zones with worsening sanitation, minimal medical care, and little access to food or clean water.

In one of the most disturbing developments, the Israeli army on Friday circulated a map targeting Blocks 783 and 784 in west Gaza City, stating:

“To the residents of the Gaza City area in Blocks 783 and 784, evacuate the area immediately, as we will attack it with great force.”

These blocks are home to thousands of civilians, including those sheltering in schools, tents, streets, and UN facilities. The targeted zone also houses a hospital, two universities, the office of a Palestinian human rights organisation, and a UN site, clearly marked on the army’s own map.

An Anadolu reporter described the evacuation zone as including densely populated neighbourhoods in southern Rimal, full of civilians who had already been displaced from the eastern parts of Gaza City and northern Gaza.

Machinery Of Destruction: Israel’s Bulldozer Economy.

The Israeli military’s ongoing campaign of devastation has increasingly relied on heavy machinery, often operated by Israeli civilians and private contractors, some of whom are making as much as $9,000 per month, according to a bombshell report by TheMarker on Thursday.

The article details how the Israeli Ministry of Defence pays 5,000 shekels ($1,500) per day to equipment owners, of which around 1,200 shekels ($360) goes to the individual operator. Additional bonuses are paid based on the scale of destruction:

• 2,500 shekels ($750) for razing a three-storey building
• 5,000 shekels ($1,500) for taller structures

These demolitions, which include residential homes, apartment blocks, mosques, schools, hospitals, and critical infrastructure, are carried out under the pretext of “military necessity,” but often occur far from the front lines and without any clear strategic justification. Observers have likened the process to a lucrative, state-funded destruction industry, feeding war profiteers while flattening what remains of Gaza’s civilian life.

This destruction comes as no major city in the Strip has been spared. Entire neighbourhoods have been bulldozed, with satellite imagery revealing vast tracts of rubble where communities once stood. Eyewitnesses and journalists describe rows of armoured bulldozers rolling through towns, pushing down walls with civilians still inside, or clearing areas for Israeli military control and potential future settlement.

A War Under Legal Scrutiny:

Despite growing international condemnation, Israel’s military campaign continues with impunity. Since October 7, 2023, over 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The majority of those killed are women and children, and countless more have been injured or remain trapped beneath rubble.

Mass starvation, the spread of diseases, and the destruction of water and sanitation systems have pushed Gaza into what multiple humanitarian organisations describe as a man-made catastrophe.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel is also facing charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a case that accuses the state of deliberately targeting the civilian population, with the intent to erase Palestinian life and sovereignty in the enclave.

Ceasefire Calls Ignored:

Israel continues to reject international calls for a ceasefire, instead escalating its military operations with the backing of the United States and other Western powers. Despite UN resolutions, mass global protests, and mounting legal challenges, the Israeli military appears committed to a policy of total war against Gaza, displacing and starving civilians while shielding its leadership from accountability.

What remains is a nightmare of rubble and blood, where children die waiting for food, hospitals are bombed after evacuation orders, and bulldozers replace diplomacy.

Conclusion: Bulldozers, Bullets, And The Blueprint For Erasure.

What is unfolding in Gaza is not simply the collateral wreckage of war. It is the systematic and methodical erasure of a people, executed through ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, and starvation, and now increasingly recognised by legal experts and rights bodies as a campaign of genocide.

Nearly 800 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for food in recent weeks alone. Tens of thousands have been forced to flee again and again under threat of bombardment, only to find that the “safe zones” they are ordered into are already under fire or about to be reduced to rubble. Entire neighbourhoods are being deliberately emptied, flattened, and redrawn. Hospitals, universities, UN shelters, human rights offices, and aid convoys have become targets, not despite their civilian status, but seemingly because of it.

This is not a chaotic or accidental policy. It is methodical, mapped, and monetised.

As TheMarker revealed, Israeli civilians operating heavy machinery in Gaza can earn up to $9,000 a month, paid by the Israeli Ministry of Defence, to operate bulldozers and cranes that erase Palestinian homes, schools, and infrastructure. The rates are set by the size of the building demolished. The business of destruction has become a privatised arm of military occupation, with civilians and contractors profiting off of what should legally be recognised as war crimes.

The Israeli military calls this “engineering work.” But human rights experts call it by its real name: forcible transfer, a crime under the Rome Statute. In many cases, it constitutes collective punishment, and in context, it aligns with the elements of genocide, as outlined in Article II of the Genocide Convention: the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about a group’s destruction.

This is not new. What makes this moment different is the scale, speed, and shamelessness with which it is being carried out, and the impunity with which it continues.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The International Court of Justice has found it “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Yet the bulldozers keep moving, the bombs keep falling, and the food lines keep turning into death traps.

The role of the United States and other Western powers is not peripheral. It is central. The US not only arms and finances the Israeli military to the tune of nearly $4 billion a year, but it has also helped establish and manage the very humanitarian zones now being targeted. The bloodshed around US-linked aid sites, in this light, is not just tragic; it is politically sponsored. Washington’s refusal to enforce even the most basic red lines makes it a co-author of Gaza’s destruction.

This is not a war being waged to protect Israeli civilians. It is a war being waged to systematically depopulate, dismantle, and dominate Palestinian land, to ensure a future where Gaza is no longer home to Palestinians, but a flattened security zone, controlled entirely by Israel, with no viable path to sovereignty or return.

Until the international community is willing to confront this reality, not just with words, but with sanctions, prosecutions, and meaningful consequences, the machinery of erasure will grind on. The bulldozers will keep burying homes, history, and hope. The snipers will keep targeting starving children. The policies of dispossession will continue under the guise of “security.” And the world will watch, as it has before, while a people are slowly, methodically, and profitably wiped off the map.