Aside from the sound of hoofbeats from passing animal-drawn carts and the incessant buzzing of Israeli drones, the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza is eerily quiet.
Once the site of an aid distribution centre where hungry Palestinians queued – and died – while waiting for food, all that remains is a barren stretch of land bearing the marks of heavy military activity.
The air hanging over the area is thick with dust, and mounds of sand and debris trace the path of the deadly buffer zone carved through the heart of Gaza by Israeli forces.
The aid centre in the Netzarim Corridor was one of four set up by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in response to rising hunger created by Israel's restrictions on the entry of aid. But these sites became death traps for many Palestinians who undertook long, punishing walks there to collect food parcels but never returned.
Gaza resident Mohammed El Taweel, 36, told The National: "It's a shame what they put people through ... to make them risk their lives for a food box not fit for human consumption and to make their families mourn them over a bag of flour."
The GHF sites have now been dismantled as Israel has agreed to a surge in aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, as part of a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that came into effect last week. The site at Netzarim was abandoned on Friday as the Israeli army withdrew from the area under the truce deal. Whether the GHF will play any future role in aid distribution remains to be seen.
While Israeli troops and tanks have retreated from the former GHF aid sites, discarded bullet casings and dried bloodstains remain as reminders of a pattern of systematic killing of Palestinian aid seekers, unveiled by The National.
Death traps
An investigation in August revealed humiliating tactics used by the Israeli army to control crowds waiting for aid and lure desperate civilians into waves of live fire. A report published by Israeli newspaper Haaretz in June said Israeli soldiers and officials were given orders to deliberately shoot Palestinians near aid distribution sites in Gaza, even though it was clear those people posed no threat.
At least 2,600 Palestinians were killed and thousands more wounded while seeking aid, most of them near GHF sites, since the centres began operating in late May, Gaza's Health Ministry has reported.
Survivors recall risking their lives out of sheer necessity as severe hunger gripped Gaza under Israel's months-long blockade.
"We saw death with our own eyes," said Gaza resident Ahmed Sarhan, 23. "It was a massacre. Every time [people arrived at GHF sites for food] there was a new massacre. We knew we'd be facing our death but we had no choice."
The UN declared famine in Gaza city in August, after months of Israeli restrictions on food deliveries. A report this month by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said nearly 55,000 children under five in Gaza were malnourished, including at least 12,800 severe cases. It found increases in levels of child malnutrition across Gaza coincided with periods of Israeli blockades of aid.
The GHF was revealed in February as an alternative to the UN aid distribution system in Gaza, established over decades, as Israeli authorities accused Hamas of stealing food. However, reports of killings and mounting civilian deaths near GHF aid sites quickly raised concerns over its operations.
UN experts and aid organisations repeatedly criticised the GHF's aid delivery model and demanded that it be shut down, accusing Israel of weaponising hunger.
“People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. "The search for food must never be a death sentence."
