ISRAEL and US-backed food distribution centres in Gaza are sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation” that must be shut down, a medical NGO working on the ground warned today.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has documented horrors witnessed at two of its clinics located near sites run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in a new report.

Testimonies and medical data point to “both targeted and indiscriminate violence” by Israeli forces and private US contractors at the sites.

Between June 7 and July 24 this year 1,380 casualties, including 28 dead, were received at MSF’s Al-Mawasi and Al-Attar clinics.

Seventy-one children were treated for gunshot wounds.

Among them was a 12-year-old boy hit by a bullet that had passed all the way through his abdomen and five young girls, including an eight-year-old who suffered a gunshot wound to her chest.

MSF general director Raquel Ayora said: “In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.

“The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty.”

Mohammed Riad Tabasi, a patient at the Al-Mawasi clinic, said: “We’re being slaughtered. I’ve been injured maybe 10 times.” 

“I saw it with my own eyes, about 20 corpses around me. All of them shot in the head, in the stomach.”

GHF replaced UN-coordinated aid delivery in May. Under the scheme, what had been 400 aid distribution points operating during the temporary ceasefire were reduced to just four.

All of these are in areas under full Israeli military control and “secured” by private US armed contractors.

GHF announces when sites will be open for distributions on social media, which it often does in the middle of the night, with less than 30 minutes’ notice.

Describing one journey, Omar, 23, said: “At around 3am, heavy gunfire started.

“There was gunfire from the quadcopter, from the Apache helicopter, from tanks, from naval boats and from the soldiers themselves. There were a lot of injuries.

“A bullet struck my leg. At first, I thought my leg was gone. I was wearing jeans and a belt. I took off the belt and tied it around my leg. We remained trapped in the area until 5am.

“There were many young guys with me. One of them tried to get me out. He got shot in the head and died on my chest.”

One medical co-ordinator said: “People are being shot like animals. They’re not armed. They’re not soldiers. They’re civilians carrying plastic bags, hoping to bring home some flour or pasta.”

MSF teams treated 196 patients with injuries following chaotic scrambles at the sites, including a five-year-old boy with severe head injuries and a woman who died of asphyxiation.

Registered in Delaware, GHF has received $30 million (£22.3m) from the US State Department, and $100m (£74.4m) from another government that it has declined to identify. 

MSF is calling for the scheme to be dismantled immediately and for governments, especially the US, to suspend all financial and political support. 

Oxfam policy lead in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Bushra Khalidi said GHF sites “are not designed to reach those most in need or protect the most vulnerable, as any principled aid agency operation would. 

“Instead, they are sowing chaos, triggering stampedes, for limited supplies that people don’t even have the fuel to cook. 

“This system appears engineered not to help people, but to control, corral and displace them – all under the banner of humanitarian relief.”

Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal demanded that Britain take action and immediately halt arms sales to Israel.

He said: “Whilst Israel lures starving Palestinians to their death in Gaza it is unconscionable that our government continues to provide Israel with the weapons it uses in these attacks and operate surveillance flights for Israel from RAF Akrotiri. 

“Keir Starmer must stop arming and facilitating Israel’s genocide.”

CND general secretary Sophie Bolt said: “The US and Israel are using aid distribution in Gaza as a tool of starvation and terror.

“Israel is acting with impunity and it’s shameful that the British government continues to support it with intelligence, diplomatic support, and allowing for its continued participation in the F-35 programme. 

“We call on Britain to fully end arms sales to Israel, end its intelligence sharing and sanction this genocidal regime.”