A whistleblower working with the controversial US non-profit Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has accused Israeli forces of directly overseeing militarised aid operations in Gaza and of ordering deadly force against starving civilians, including children.

Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Aguilar, a retired US Army Green Beret, who worked for the GHF subcontractor UG Solutions, described an incident on May 28 at a distribution site where he says he witnessed a young boy named Amir being shot and killed by Israeli forces shortly after receiving food aid.

"This little boy is similar in age to my son," Aguilar said in an emotional interview with American commentator and host Tucker Carlson on Thursday.

"He wasn't ISIS. He wasn't a combatant. He was barefoot, starving, holding a small bag of rice, some lentils, a half bag of flour. That’s all he had."

The shooting occurred just beyond the aid site's perimetre, where Israeli forces were reportedly positioned.

Aguilar said bullets were fired around the crowds, into the air, and at their feet.

"We were told this was crowd control," he said.

"But when you use machine guns and mortar rounds to control a crowd, what do you think is going to happen?"

Aguilar stated on the UnXeptable podcast on Monday that Amir kissed his hands before collecting aid, only to be shot dead by Israeli forces later.

"This young boy, Amir, walked up to me, barefoot and wearing tattered clothes that hung off his emaciated body," he recalled.

"He walked 12 km to get there, and when he got there, he thanked us for the remnants and the small crumbs that he got.

"He set them down on the ground, because I was kneeling at this point, and he sets his food down, and he places his hands on my face, on the side of my face, on my cheeks, these frail, skeleton, emaciated hands - dirty - and he puts them on my face, and he kissed me.

"He kissed me, and he said thank you in English, thank you. And he collected his items, and he walked back to the group," he said.

"Then he was shot at with pepper spray, tear gas, stun grenades and bullets shot at his feet [and then] in the air, and he runs away scared, and the IDF [Israeli army] were shooting at the crowd.

"They're shooting into this crowd and Palestinians — civilians, human beings — are dropping to the ground, getting shot. And Amir was one of them."

'Our client is the IDF'

In another interview with US Senator Chris Van Hollen, Aguilar went further, saying the Israeli military was not only involved in the violence but was directly giving orders to contractors on the ground.

"I was told very explicitly: our client is the IDF [Israeli military]," he said.

Aguilar recounted a moment during an operation at Site Two when an Israeli liaison officer in the GHF control room issued a warning about Palestinian children climbing a berm to escape being crushed.

When Aguilar didn't immediately act, the officer returned to his desk, spoke over the radio in Hebrew, and according to another contractor who translated, ordered Israeli snipers to open fire.

"I said, 'You are not going to shoot children,'" Aguilar recalled.

"They didn't have shoes. One wasn't even wearing a shirt. They were starving."

The children jumped down and ran before shots were fired, he said.

Aguilar also described how his superior in the contractor chain warned him never to disobey the Israelis.

"The chief operations officer told me: 'Never say no to the client.' I asked who the client was. He said, 'The IDF.'"

'Designed death traps'

Aguilar called the GHF aid sites "designed death traps" — systems engineered to lure desperate civilians with aid, only to expose them to crossfire and deadly crowd control measures.

"The United States puts out the aid, and we lure them in. Then when they leave, they get shot at — coming and going," he said.

Doctors at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza have confirmed mass casualty incidents each time GHF operates aid distributions, Aguilar said, citing hospital staff.

"Every single time, there's an influx of wounded and dead. It's grotesque."

He also criticised the lack of signage, loudspeakers, or translators at aid points.

"These people don't know where to go. They don't speak English. They're starving. And we're using weapons instead of words."

After Aguilar first told Amir's story publicly, GHF officials pushed back, claiming the boy was still alive and that Aguilar's account was fabricated.

"They said I was lying. That Amir wasn't dead," Aguilar said.

"But the photo they're using to deny my account? I took that photo. It's a different child, at a different site, on a different day."

He said the images were geolocated and timestamped — one from May 29 at Site Two, the other from June 1 at Site Four.

"Unless Amir flew from one site to another through combat zones, that's not him. They're not even the same child."

Aguilar also alleged that humanitarian groups are now working to identify Amir’s next of kin and confirm his death through hospital records.

Aguilar denied having any political agenda.

"I'm not running for office. I don’t sell books. I don’t even have social media," he said.

"I'm a 25-year Army veteran. I bled for this country. I was there. I held Amir's hand. I took the photos. I saw it with my own eyes."

"So who are you going to believe? The evangelical Zionist in DC with millions on the line — or the guy who was there when the boy was killed?"

'Hunger Games'

On Thursday, US Senator Bernie Sanders hailed Aguilar as a retired Special Forces Green Beret "who won a Purple Heart for his service to this country."

"He took a contract helping to distribute aid in Gaza. There, he witnessed atrocities committed using American taxpayer dollars," Sanders said on X, posting a video of Aguilar's corroboration.

In the video, Aguilar said the GHF's aid programme is run by Israel, akin to a dystopian novel.

"The best way that I can describe how the Palestinians reach the site to receive aid is akin to the Hunger Games, survival of the fittest, whomever can run the fastest and the furthest to get to the site first gets the aid," Aguilar added.

"The sites themselves, in terms of the process for having the Palestinians leave the distribution site, was done through shooting at them, hitting them with pepper spray and tear gas, firing rubber bullets from shotguns at them. And this isn't something that happened just once or twice. This happened every day at every distribution, at every site," he said.

Aguilar emphasised that his recollection of his time working for GHF "is not hyperbole.

"This is not Hamas propaganda."

He said "starving" Palestinian aid seekers have to travel eight to 12 kilometres to reach aid sites, often without shoes, as they traverse "an active war zone."

"On two occasions, I bore witness to a Palestinian man in one instance and a Palestinian woman in a second instance that were carrying their dead children. And these children didn't die from gunshot wounds or from sickness or disease. They died of starvation. I've seen it with my own eyes," he said.

Aguilar stated he "witnessed indiscriminate shooting, inappropriate use of force, dereliction from the leadership" and was ignored when reporting it.