The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) today published a new report titled “GHF Aid Distribution Centers in Gaza: Starvation, Killings, and Humiliation of Women.” The report exposes the systematic policy of starvation imposed by the Israeli Occupation Forces since 7 October 2023, including the deliberate use of starvation as a method of warfare. It further documents the grave violations resulting from this policy, which amount to acts constituting the crime of genocide. The report also highlights a series of coercive practices, including the closure of border crossings; the destruction of bakeries and farms; the cutting off of fuel and other essential supplies; the obstruction of humanitarian aid convoys; and the targeting of civilian and humanitarian workers as well as civilians. These policies and practices have transformed survival into a daily struggle fraught with grave risks, particularly affecting women, children, older persons, and other vulnerable groups.

The report underlines that one of the most serious manifestations of this crime was the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in February 2025, which is directly funded by the United States. GHF assumed responsibility for the distribution of humanitarian aid from late May through October 2025. The report unfolds how humanitarian aid has been stripped of its life-saving character, effectively becoming a mechanism of lethal harm. Within this framework, humanitarian aid has been instrumentalized as part of a military strategy aimed at exterminating civilians by exposing them to starvation, humiliation, deliberate killing, and serious bodily injury.

This report places particular emphasis on the conditions of women in the Gaza Strip during the period in which the GHF was operating. Within this context, women found themselves at the forefront of a cycle of targeting and suffering, caught between direct killings, the infliction of severe bodily injuries, and the loss of husbands, children, and primary breadwinners. These violations were compounded by a coercive shift in family roles, forcing women to assume expanded responsibilities and bear a double burden within their families and communities. Despite the grave and well-known risks, women were compelled to travel to aid distribution sites in desperate attempts to secure minimal food supplies capable of staving off hunger among their families. In this context, the act of obtaining food ceased to be a routine survival measure and instead became a life-threatening endeavor.

This report is based on testimonies documented by PCHR from surviving women and eyewitnesses. These testimonies document deliberate killings, the infliction of serious bodily injuries, the loss of children and husbands, the degradation of human dignity, and the consequent coercive shift in social roles imposed on women. Taken together, these practices constitute a clear extension of the crime of genocide against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, as they involve deliberate killing, the infliction of severe bodily and mental harm, and acts intended to bring about the partial or total destruction of a protected group under international law.

Accordingly, PCHR calls on the international community to uphold its legal and moral responsibilities and to take urgent action to hold accountable all parties involved in the aid distribution policies that have caused serious violations in Gaza. This includes military and political officials who approved or oversaw the implementation of these policies, as well as anyone who facilitated or participated in their execution. PCHR emphasizes the importance of taking all necessary legal measures to ensure that those responsible are held accountable and to end the culture of impunity, in protection of victims’ rights and in defense of the principles of international justice.