Gaza: British emergency physician James Smith, who spent several weeks treating war-wounded patients in the enclave, has condemned the Israeli-led, US-backed aid mechanism that began distributing small shipments of food in Gaza this week on May 29 that the initiative is designed to distract global attention from “ongoing violence and ethnic cleansing.”
Smith argued that the programme amounts to a classic “humanitarian alibi,” a tactic in which highly publicised relief deliveries provide political cover for belligerents even as bombardment, forced displacement and siege conditions persist. He noted that the rations being handed out are mostly dry goods—useless without clean water to cook them—and that no comparable system exists for urgently needed medicines or fuel for hospital generators.
The physician, who worked in makeshift field clinics after repeated Israeli strikes disabled Gaza’s hospital network, said many local medics now spend their nights searching for food and shelter for their own families, leaving them exhausted when mass-casualty incidents occur. “Everyone is collectively traumatised by Israel’s violence in Gaza,” he said, warning that the enclave’s healthcare capacity has been “systematically dismantled” by blockade and more than six months of air- and ground attacks.
Almost 700 attacks on medical facilities and personnel have been formally documented since the war began, yet Smith believes that figure is “a gross underestimation” because scores of clinics have been destroyed without on-the-ground verification and many injuries to staff go unreported. With sterilisation supplies gone and anaesthetic stocks nearly depleted, routine surgeries have become life-threatening, and preventable deaths from infection, dehydration and chronic disease are soaring.
Israel’s offensive, launched after the Hamas-led assault of October 7 2023, has killed at least 54,249 Palestinians and injured more than 123,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, while the Government Media Office estimates the true death toll exceeds 61,700 once those still buried under rubble are counted. Critics say the tightly rationed aid corridor allows Israeli and US officials to claim progress while the broader siege—and the daily civilian toll it inflicts—continues unchecked.
