AILSA CHANG, HOST:
What does it take to get food today in Gaza? It involves a perilous journey that NPR's producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, experienced himself last week. Hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli troops as they approach these food sites, according to health officials and international medical teams in Gaza. U.S. officials have accused American media of spreading Hamas misinformation. The account that you are about to hear is rare reporting by a journalist from inside a new food distribution site that the U.S. and Israel set up in Gaza, sites which the United Nations calls death traps. Before we start, a warning. In this story, you will hear the sounds of gunfire and descriptions of violence. Here's NPR's Daniel Estrin.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Strict Israeli controls on food entering Gaza have driven widespread hunger. Our colleague Anas Baba has lost a third of his body weight during the war. He's been eating one small meal a day, rationing his food supplies until they ran out three weeks ago.
ANAS BABA, BYLINE: I cannot find the basics - just, like, flour, cooking oil, lentils.
ESTRIN: Israel bans international journalists from independent access to Gaza. Baba is from Gaza and has been reporting for NPR throughout 20 months of war - reporting on the war and living through it, experiencing hunger and observing what it does to a person's body.
BABA: Women faint in the street. Shildren faint in the street. Hunger is a little bit of an addiction. Once you feel that your stomach, your brain, your body is craving something, you will not be afraid of anything, and you can do anything to bring food for your children and for yourself.
ESTRIN: Last Monday evening, he and his cousin walked for hours to get food at a new distribution site run by private American contractors with a group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF.
BABA: It's truly a day in my life that I will never, ever forget. We packed a small, like, backpack - water, bandages, first aid kit.
ESTRIN: Others tuck a large empty sack under their belt on one hip, and on the other...
BABA: And the other side is a knife to protect themselves from the looters and the bandits.
ESTRIN: Around midnight, Baba joined large crowds waiting to approach the food site. GHF has changing hours and opens and closes the site at very short notice, they say to prevent crowd surges. But to get there, you have to pass through an Israeli military zone. Baba says some edge close to get to the front of the crowd before the site opens despite the risk of Israeli soldiers perceiving them as a threat.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD BUSTLING)
BABA: This is the moment where everyone here says that the GHF site is open. And now it's 1:30 after midnight.
So all of the cars turns on the engine, and they started to race each other, motorcycles. And between them, there is people running between the cars. I saw some people there being crushed. I saw some people that they were literally underneath the cars.
ESTRIN: He ran with the crowd, but when they got close to the site, they were shocked to find an Israeli tank. The crowd was wrong. The food site was not yet open.
BABA: Every single person started to retreat and run, and the tank did not even waited a second.
ESTRIN: Baba recorded the gunfire from a distance.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)
ESTRIN: He and his cousin threw themselves to the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Shouting in non-English language).
BABA: And I heard the gunshots and the people screaming that they are injured. And other, they saying that my brother died, my friend died.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)
BABA: It's still, at the meantime, 1:48.
And the gunfire didn't stop. And I can see in front of me that people are still waiting. They're not leaving.
ESTRIN: The Israeli military told NPR people gathered near the site and adjacent to Israeli IDF troops. Quote, "reports of injured individuals as a result of IDF fire in the area were received. The details are under review."
BABA: At 2 a.m. the gunfire just stopped, and we told ourselves maybe this is a sign from them. We were going to go for another run. I stepped on bodies, and I didn't stop.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD BUSTLING)
BABA: This is another run.
ESTRIN: This time, the GHF site was open. Baba watched large crowds tear down a fence to reach boxes of food sitting on wooden pallets.
BABA: I grabbed my cellphone and started to record what I'm seeing in front of me.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE IDLING)
BABA: And people enter, fighting each other to take as much as possible.
A woman in her 40s with her son, and that woman, sweaty, with an angry face, she was holding two knives in her own hands, and she was screaming at everyone, do not even touch my son or the food.
ESTRIN: It didn't used to be this kind of free-for-all. For most of the war, there were hundreds of aid distribution centers across Gaza. U.N. agencies would send a text message when it was your turn to pick up food, and everyone got some. Israel and the U.S. accused Hamas of diverting that aid, so they set up the GHF to keep Hamas away. But at the GHF site, Baba saw people he believes were Hamas members, based on their looks, taking food for their families. GHF told NPR it's impossible to screen for individuals affiliated with Hamas, but said it was preventing Hamas from controlling the flow of aid. GHF also said it forbids Palestinians from filming U.S. contractors at the site.
BABA: People came to me telling me, look at your forehead. There is three green laser points on my head from the American contractors, and one of them say that out loud with a speaker, no filming is allowed.
ESTRIN: Asked about this reporting, GHF acknowledged the concern that the changing hours could expose people to potential Israeli military fire. The military says it's opened new roads and created new signage. GHF says Hamas has wounded and killed people en route to their sites and has killed and threatened Palestinians working with them. One hundred and seventy rights groups and aid groups have called for the GHF system to be dismantled. At the distribution site, Baba grabbed whatever food he could find tossed on the ground.
BABA: I pulled 5 kilograms of rice. It was open with some sand in it, but I didn't care. It's food. I can wash it.
ESTRIN: His cousin got trampled on the ground by the crowds, and he helped pull him up. Then they fought upstream through a river of people trying to leave with their bags of food. Walking back, they were stopped by four masked thieves.
BABA: They were having big knives, and they told us, you do have two options. Give us half of what you had - OK? - or we're going to harm you.
ESTRIN: When the thieves refused to negotiate, Baba and his cousin threw two bags of food at the thieves and ran away with enough food to give their relatives. Baba was left with about a week and a half of supplies for himself.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Crying in non-English language).
ESTRIN: Later that morning, Baba went to the hospital. Health officials said more than 200 people were wounded and 26 killed outside the food site.
BABA: There is no white shrouds in the hospitals in the meantime. The dead bodies that lying on the ground were covered by the same sacks that they were taken at to fill it up with food.
ESTRIN: Every day GHF has opened its food distribution sites - including today - Gaza health officials say hungry people seeking food have been killed, and many people return from the sites empty-handed.
Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Tel Aviv, with NPR's Anas Baba in Gaza City.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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