The Hill: In Gaza, Israel has turned food aid into a death trap

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

 https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5480646-aid-turned-death-trap-gaza/

by Hani Almadhoun, opinion contributor - 09/02/25 11:30 AM ET 

A Palestinian boy sits on the ground as he waits near a food distribution kitchen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

 

My cousin Sameeh Mohamad Hilmi Almadhoun was just 18 when an Israeli soldier allegedly killed him at an aid site in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. He was a young man searching for food, a simple act that became his death sentence.

The truth is far more devastating than a simple headline: Israel has turned aid in Gaza into a lure for death.

Sameeh had already lost nearly everything. An Israeli strike in northern Gaza killed his parents and three siblings, some of whom had special needs. Driven by hunger, he left the north in search of a meal — without his surviving family knowing he had even gone. 

He walked more than six miles to reach one of the four aid sites run by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation near Khan Younis and chose to wait overnight so he could be first in line in the morning. 

That decision became his death sentence. Sameeh was one of more than 1,400 Palestinians killed at aid sites across Gaza. 

We discovered his death the way too many Palestinian families do: through a grainy photo of an unidentified body circulating on Telegram. My sister, Chef Samah — who runs a soup kitchen on the Gaza pier, now a makeshift camp for displaced Palestinians — recognized him and quickly reached out to our mother. 

That recognition was a form of grief too heavy to bear. Sameeh’s grandmother, who suffers from chronic chest pain, has already buried 10 of her children and grandchildren, all killed by the Israeli military in northern Gaza during this ongoing nightmare... READ MORE  https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5480646-aid-turned-death-trap-gaza/

"This is what life is like in Gaza. The children aren’t being raised to hate. They’re being raised to be afraid. Afraid of being seen. Afraid of being heard. Not because of anything they or their families did, but because of the constant fear and violence brought by the Israeli military. This fear is shaping their lives. It’s leaving deep, invisible wounds that will take years—if not generations—to heal." Hani Almadhoun

Hani Almadhoun

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Imagine a world where turning on a light could cost you your life. This isn’t a scene from a dystopian movie—it’s the daily reality for my family in Gaza.

 

Just now, I was on the phone with my mom and the rest of the family there. As we talked, one of the kids switched on a flashlight. It was late, and everything around them was pitch black. My mom reacted instantly, her voice tense: “Turn it off. We stay in the dark, because any light can bring complete—and eternal—darkness.”

 

She wasn’t exaggerating. She meant it literally. Even the smallest light can attract a drone—and she could hear one overhead as we spoke.

 

This is what life is like in Gaza. The children aren’t being raised to hate. They’re being raised to be afraid. Afraid of being seen. Afraid of being heard. Not because of anything they or their families did, but because of the constant fear and violence brought by the Israeli military. This fear is shaping their lives. It’s leaving deep, invisible wounds that will take years—if not generations—to heal.

 

And the hardest part? No one in the world has been able to shine a light bright enough to protect them. The people of Gaza are left with nothing but their faith—and the decisions of a right-wing Israeli government that has brought destruction and despair, not just to Gaza, but far beyond it.

 

This isn’t what survival should look like. This is what it means to live in fear, where even a small flashlight can bring disaster. The world needs to know this. And the world needs to care.