What’s inside the boxes of aid being distributed in Gaza?

Four cans of tuna, some packets of spaghetti and a litre of oil.

These are just some of the items starving Palestinians have received after waiting hours in the punishing midday heat in war-ravaged Gaza.

Since Tuesday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US-backed group that has been approved by US and Israel to take over aid distribution in the enclave, has handed out just 14,000 food boxes to needy Palestinians – a fraction of what aid agencies say is needed to address the mass starvation unfolding in the strip.

The new aid system, which limits food distribution to a small number of hubs guarded by American security contractors, seeks to wrest distribution away from aid groups led by the United Nations.

The UN and other major humanitarian organisations have repeatedly criticised the new system, saying it won’t be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.1 million people and allows Israel to use food control as a weapon to control the population. 

They have also warned of the risk of friction between Israeli troops and people seeking supplies.

Israel, which rejects the criticism, has instead accused Hamas of stealing aid and says its blockade on the entry of food is partly aimed at preventing the group from diverting supplies.

But Cindy McCain, the executive director of the World Food Programme and widow of US Senator John McCain, has rubbished such allegations, saying much of the aid that is being looted is being seized by destitute Palestinians. 

“People are desperate, and they see a World Food Programme truck coming in, and they run for it,” she told the US network CBS earlier this week.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Hamas or any kind of organised crime or anything.”

So far, only two of the four hubs Israel has announced are operational – both in the destroyed southern region of Rafah, where few Palestinians now live.

Palestinians must go to these areas if they want to survive, and on Tuesday thousands walked from the tent camps outside the city of Khan Younis, crossing Israeli military lines, to reach the distribution points.

At one point, chaos erupted as Palestinians overwhelmed a hub in Rafah, laying bare the scale of the catastrophe inflicted on the enclave by Israel’s three-month blockade of aid.

At least three Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded as hungry men, women and children tried to get their hands on a box of food.

Aid organisations have criticised the location of the sites, saying that the foundation is violating humanitarian principles by clustering them in one area, making them inaccessible to others across the enclave.

According to the GHF, each of the boxes it distributes is intended to feed exactly 5.5 people and last 3.5 days.

But several Palestinians have told Middle East Eye that upon receiving their box of aid they found the supplies to be woefully inadequate.

While each box is different, most contained the following food items:

1 litre of oil
2kg of rice
4kg of flour
1kg of beans
Four cans of tuna
A jar of stuffed grape leaves
A jar of apricot jam
A box of biscuits
6 packets of spaghetti
A box of tea bags

None of the Palestinians MEE spoke to have received bottled water, cooking fuel, medicines, blankets, soap, washing powder or menstrual pads.

Additionally, none have reported receiving baby formula, baby food, nappies and essential supplies for babies and children to survive.

“We just want to feed our children,” Abdullah Suleiman al-Sadudi, a displaced Palestinian who managed to secure a box of aid, told MEE on Wednesday.

“What are we supposed to do? Have mercy on us. This is wrong.”

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has also condemned the rations, calling Israel’s model for provision a “distraction from atrocities”. 

“The model of aid distribution proposed by Israel does not align with core humanitarian principles,” Lazzarini said on Wednesday. 

“We have seen yesterday the shocking images of hungry people pushing against fences, desperate for food. It was chaotic, undignified and unsafe.”

A Palestinian man, who managed to get his hands on a box of aid, also lashed out at the new mechanism, saying it deliberately put women and children in harm’s way.

“We went and found children, women, heads of families all rushing in,” he said.

“This mechanism is useless. Only the strong get something.”

The GHF was thrown into disarray earlier this week when its chief executive, Jake Wood, resigned a day before its launch, saying the organisation could not work in a way that adhered to “humanitarian principles”.

Incorporated in Switzerland earlier this year, the GHF is run by a group of American security contractors, ex-military officers and humanitarian aid officials.

It is unclear who is funding the organisation as both the US and Israel have denied pouring money into the company. Its leadership, meanwhile, has claimed to have more than $100m in commitments from a European Union government but has not named the donor. 

The GHF has emerged as international pressure mounts on Israel as malnutrition spreads throughout Gaza with dozens of children dying from starvation in recent days.