I asked a reporter who was in Gaza: Is aid being used as a weapon?

A conversation with journalist Afeef Nessouli, who just returned from six weeks in the Strip, on how Israel and its allies restructured the aid system and turned it into a tool of war.

Few foreign journalists have been able to report from inside Gaza since October 2023. Afeef Nessouli was one of them. He entered the Strip in late March, just as Israel broke the ceasefire, and spent six weeks volunteering at a medical NGO and reporting during off-hours.

During that period, a new aid system was set up: the U.S. and Israel backed the formation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which operates just four distribution hubs under Israeli military oversight. Traditional aid agencies like UNRWA and WFP were blocked from operating; many donors had paused UNRWA funding earlier, though most have since resumed support (except for the U.S. and UK). GHF was set up as a militarized alternative, increasingly criticized by international organizations after over a thousand people were killed near its sites between late May and July 2025.

In the following interview, I ask Afeef what he witnessed on the ground.

Q: You entered Gaza as a volunteer with a medical NGO, not as an accredited foreign correspondent. How did that shape the kind of access you had, and what risks or limits came with documenting what you saw as a journalist in that setting?
A: I accessed Gaza by volunteering as a humanitarian aid worker with Glia International, which has been operating in Gaza for over a decade. That meant I was with doctors and nurses at various hospitals throughout the Strip. I was able to shadow doctors and nurses as they worked, volunteer at community kitchens that delivered to red zones, and talk to various victims of the Israeli genocide. I believe it allowed me unfettered access to people experiencing excruciating torture, and it made it easier for me to relay their experiences to news agencies and audiences in the West.

Q: Your reporting describes a famine that’s manufactured. For readers who haven’t followed how aid works, can you walk us through what that looks like in daily life?
A: That looks like everyone begging. It looks like friends becoming emaciated after several months. One friend lost over 100 pounds. It looks like eating one meal a day, and for many eating less than that. It also means aid sites that are run by [Americans] and Israelis who shoot at hungry aid seekers, killing them instead of providing them with sustenance or safety.

Q: From your perspective, what structural decisions led to that breakdown?
A: Hamas isn't causing chaos, nor is it responsible for stealing aid in any recognizable pattern. The chaos comes directly from [U.S.] mercenaries distributing aid in an inadequate fashion, with Israeli soldiers looking on from a distance. The GHF replaced a UN system that had 400 sites with only 4 sites which operate semi daily and sometimes not at all. The breakdown comes from the fact that a party to the genocide is now in control of the aid distribution.

Q: You were there from late March to early June. Did you notice any shifts in how people described what was happening to them over time?
A: Yes, people became more desperate, depressed and aware that they could die from literally starving. They went from eating once a day to eating once every couple of days. People stopped living in the future tense or planning.

Q: Your reporting shows that what’s happening in Gaza isn’t just a failure to deliver aid, but it’s the use of aid as a weapon. Do you see this as a shift in how modern warfare is being carried out? And what do you think international media still doesn’t understand about this “new” kind of battlefield?
A: This war is happening, because it is a testing ground for new technology that more easily controls, occupies and displaces people. I believe international media should frame the genocide as a result of corporations choosing to push mechanisms of fascism as a way to secure resources. This is not modern warfare, it is an excuse for Israel to expand, develop new land and grow its population in the place of another indigenous group.

The interview was conducted for whathappenedlastweek.com, a weekly newsletter curating news and perspectives from the so-called Global South.