Gaza City, Gaza – “What has this bird-like child done to be denied a few grains of wheat? Must he stand at a checkpoint and wait for a soldier’s permission to eat?”

The words come softly from Hanan Salem, 42, her voice worn thin by months of displacement and hunger. She sits on a torn mat inside a crumpled tent near Gaza City’s industrial zone, cradling her youngest son. His cheeks are sunken, his chest wheezes with infection, and his small body trembles in the cold.

Her husband was killed as they fled their home in Beit Lahia. Since then, she has scraped together what little food she can find: boiled lentils, a few scraps of bread. She hasn’t seen flour in over a month.

Salem speaks to TRT World as word begins to spread across Gaza that, for the first time in more than two and a half months, limited humanitarian aid is being allowed into the besieged territory. 

The ban, imposed by Israel in March after the collapse of a ceasefire, had sealed off virtually all entry points for food, medicine, and fuel.

According to the UN, more than 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza—nearly one-quarter of the population—are facing catastrophic levels of hunger, classified as IPC Phase 5, the highest level of food insecurity. 

Entire families have resorted to grinding animal feed and wild weeds into makeshift flour. An estimated 70 percent of children under five show signs of acute malnutrition, including Salem’s youngest. His body frail from weeks of near-starvation.

The move was reportedly approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after mounting international pressure from key Western allies, and is being described by some as a long-awaited humanitarian gesture.

But for families like Salem’s, that gesture comes too late, and with too many strings attached.

To start with, only a few dozen trucks will be entering each day, far fewer than the 600 trucks daily that crossed during earlier ceasefires. 

The UN warns this trickle of aid is vastly inadequate for a population of over two million facing imminent famine. 

Even more alarming than the numbers, say Palestinian families and humanitarian experts, are the conditions under which this aid is being distributed, and the system behind it.

The new aid is being coordinated not by long-established humanitarian actors like UNRWA, but by a controversial new body: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a proposed international mechanism to coordinate food and basic relief supplies. 

On paper, it appears to be a neutral, civilian-led initiative. But for many Palestinians, it’s something far more sinister: a system that forces them to prove they are worthy of survival.

A lifeline tied to obedience

The GHF, a Swiss-registered NGO, will filter aid recipients through a set of unclear security criteria overseen by Israeli authorities and private US contractors. 

Aid will be distributed through a small number of centralised “secure zones,” raising fears that displaced families—particularly the sick, disabled, and those without factional connections—may be effectively excluded.

Aid workers and rights groups warn that coordination with Israeli authorities and private contractors could create de facto filters, especially without full transparency or independent oversight.

Unlike UNRWA’s door-to-door aid model, which prioritised reaching the most vulnerable where they are, the GHF’s approach requires people to come to it—through militarised spaces and limited checkpoints. 

That shift alone, critics argue, turns access into a privilege rather than a right.

To Salem, this isn’t a humanitarian structure, it’s a form of psychological warfare. "People are whispering that you need to be in the right place or aligned with the right group. Even if no one says it, you feel like you're being watched, measured, judged."

She isn’t alone in her fear.

Fadi Al-Kahlout, 29, a former carpenter and father of three, now lives in a tent in Al-Nasr. His tools are gone. His home flattened. His meals consist of stale bread dipped in water.

“The aid box has become a bullet,” he says bitterly. “If hunger doesn’t kill you, the humiliation will. What dignity is left when your child cries and you have to explain that rice comes with political conditions?”

Bread under surveillance

The GHF has also alarmed international humanitarian organisations. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a statement warning that the new system was “dangerous, driving civilians into militarised zones to collect rations”. 

The Israeli government states the foundation will “ensure transparency and prevent diversion of aid to Hamas”. 

However, critics point to the involvement of foreign private security companies, including firms with checkered records in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a cause for deep concern.

But while these debates play out in diplomatic corridors, the consequences are already being felt in Gaza’s streets and breadlines.

In Khan Younis, Soha Al-Madhoun, 36, works as a volunteer with a local relief group. She has seen families collapse from heat and hunger while waiting for food. 

As aid distribution becomes effectively “filtered”, Al-Madhoun echoes Salem, saying the new proposals will only breed suspicion and resentment.

“They’re turning our suffering into a sorting process,” she says. “People ask: Where do I apply? Who decides if I deserve food? The camps are full of whispers—people checking if others got aid and why they didn’t.”

She fears this psychological toll will outlast even the hunger. “Families will be torn apart. Trust will vanish. People will fight over a can of chickpeas. It’s not just a humanitarian crisis, it’s a social time bomb.”

These fears are not just personal, they cut to the core of international law. Under Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power is obligated to ensure the food and medical needs of the civilian population. 

Denying aid, or tying it to conditions, can amount to collective punishment, a violation of international humanitarian law.

For families like Salem’s, though, justice doesn’t come in the language of conventions, it comes in the form of bread and dignity.

Looking toward the horizon, she says: “We don’t need charity. We need justice. Food shouldn’t come with conditions.” Her child stirs beside her, coughing in the dust.