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This qualitative study examines how the distribution of food aid in Gaza has been transformed into a site of violence, deprivation, and psychological distress during genocide. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 23 residents of Khan Younis and Gaza City including women, men, and children, the analysis identifies five interconnected themes: fatal risks at distribution centres, the weaponisation and politicisation of humanitarian assistance, gendered suffering and the collapse of family support, inequity and the erosion of social trust, and pervasive surveillance producing lasting trauma. The findings reveal that aid delivery, rather than ensuring safety and sustenance, functions as a mechanism of control, collective punishment, and social fragmentation, reflecting broader settler colonial logics of domination. Women and children face heightened vulnerability and repeated exposure to danger, carrying the heaviest burdens of exclusion and trauma. Grounded in the lived experiences of Gazans, the study demonstrates that humanitarian aid, militarised and entangled with surveillance and coercion, reinforces structural violence rather than alleviating it. The article underscores the urgent need for humanitarian interventions that safeguard protection, dignity, and genuine impartiality, while advancing a decolonial rethinking of humanitarianism as solidarity rather than control.
Hamamra et al. (Mon,) studied this question.