Gaza: the record ·
The aid sites that became killing grounds
After an 11-week total blockade, food in Gaza was handed to a new Israeli- and US-backed foundation. In two months, more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed trying to get food.
The blockade
From 2 March to 19 May 2025, Israel blocked all food, medicine and fuel from entering Gaza. When food was allowed in again, distribution was handed to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly created organization backed by Israel and the United States, which replaced hundreds of UN distribution points with a handful of sites inside militarized zones.
"Orchestrated killing"
Starving crowds had to walk for hours through military areas to reach the sites. The UN human rights office recorded 1,373 Palestinians killed while seeking food between 27 May and 31 July 2025, 859 of them near the foundation's sites. Médecins Sans Frontières said: "This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing."
In soldiers' words
In June 2025, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published testimonies from soldiers who said they had been ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near the sites to disperse them. One called the area "a killing field".
Watch NAZA
NAZA is Israeli military slang for collateral damage: the number of civilians an officer is allowed to kill in a strike. In this documentary, 24 Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers, many from the army's most prestigious units, explain how that number was set, approved and exceeded in Gaza. What they describe is not a tragic accident of war but a system: targets tracked to their family homes, families watched for days, strikes approved knowing children were inside.
In cinemas now, and free worldwide on theguardian.com after the cinema run.
