Gaza’s hospitals continue to receive bodies riddled with fatal injuries, most of them civilians struck while seeking food. According to Dr Khalil Hamada, Director General of the Forensic Medicine Department in Gaza, the pattern is no coincidence. The injuries, he explains, are overwhelmingly concentrated in the chest and head, clear indicators of deliberate targeting in what he calls “lethal zones.”

Dr Hamada described the scenes as a daily massacre. “People queue for aid and return in body bags,” he said. “These are not stray bullets or accidents. The targeting is systematic and precise.”

Since late May, more than 600 Palestinians have been killed during aid distributions, with over 500 of them struck near sites run by the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”, an entity backed by the US and Israel. Just this morning, a distribution point in northern Rafah turned into a bloodbath, leaving nine dead and dozens wounded.

International outrage has followed, fuelled further by footage obtained by the Associated Press showing American personnel firing live rounds and stun grenades at desperate civilians attempting to collect food. Israel, after initially denying any wrongdoing, has admitted harm was caused and vaguely promised to “adjust procedures.”

But for Gaza’s exhausted medics, it’s too little, too late. Hospitals are collapsing under the weight of casualties, the blockade has cut off fuel and medicine, and basic supplies have vanished. In some facilities, doctors operate without anaesthesia, using torn clothing as bandages.

“The world must act,” Hamada urged. “We are not asking for miracles, just the right to feed our children without being shot.”

In Gaza, food queues have become front lines. And for many, survival now comes with a deadly price.