A small, emaciated Palestinian boy in Gaza named Amir was killed by Israeli forces just moments after receiving aid from American contractors in May, former U.S. Green Beret Anthony Aguilar has recounted. The horrific incident took place during his 45 days in Gaza with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — and was one of over 800 killings of Palestinian aid seekers near GHF sites.
In interviews this week, Aguilar said that on May 28, just two days after GHF sites first opened in Gaza, he and another U.S. guard encountered a boy, who he identified as Amir. Aguilar said that he and the other contractor thought Amir may be hurt, because he was carrying only small bags of rice, flour, and lentils that he picked up from the ground. They waved him over.
“The [American contractor] standing next to me — this young boy holds his hand, and he kisses it. Then he comes to me, and he holds my hand, and he kisses it,” Aguilar said in an interview with Tucker Carlson, explaining that kissing hands is a sign of deep respect in Arab cultures. He said that he and the other U.S. veteran he stood next to were “touched.”
Aguilar shared pictures of Amir with news outlets. The young boy is small and skinny, his bare feet covered in dust. He looks no older than 10 or 12.
“He was very emaciated. He had no shoes on, his pants were tattered, he had a kind of a rope or string holding his pants up. Filthy. Probably hasn’t bathed in months, probably hasn’t eaten in days,” Aguilar said. “I put my arm on his left shoulder and I look at him. I can feel the bones in his shoulder. I can feel the weakness in his arm. I can feel the vulnerability. And I can feel the desperation.”
Amir left with the crowd to exit the GHF site, as Israeli forces and American contractors ended the aid distribution as they often did, with tear gas, pepper spray, and bullets. Outside the GHF site was an active Israeli combat zone, where Israeli soldiers were firing machine guns. And Amir, along with a number of people who left, was promptly shot by Israeli forces and killed, Aguilar said.
“Amir didn’t make it home. He walked 12 kilometers to get some food, picked up scraps off the ground cause that’s all that was left, because the eight-minute mayhem took all of the food. And by the time he got there, walking with no shoes, hungry and tired, the only thing left for him was to pick up some remnants off the ground,” said Aguilar. “And when he left, he was killed by the IDF.”
“Why? Because they lack discipline. They lack standards. And they lack basic human decency,” he said.
The story of Amir is one of numerous similar incidents that Aguilar says he encountered during his 45 days with GHF in Israel and Gaza. This week, he did a series of media interviews speaking out about what he saw, with Israeli forces committing war crime after war crime, he’s said — and the U.S. standing in complicity.
In at least one case captured on video by Aguilar, he says that U.S. contractors have also opened fire on Palestinians. In another instance, Aguilar said that he was told by Israeli soldiers to shoot at children at the aid distribution site, and he refused. He was then disciplined by a higher up within the U.S. firm overseeing GHF operations, Safe Reach Solutions, with the executive telling him to never say no to a client — in this case, the Israeli military.
GHF has tried to discredit Aguilar, saying that he was fired and that he is disgruntled and spreading “false allegations.” But Aguilar has refuted these claims, showing documentation of his contract termination and saying that he left his contract early because his concerns over the GHF mechanism were dismissed.
