Gaza Herald- Gaza’s hunger crisis has already claimed the lives of hundreds of children, but a new testimony from a former US Green Beret paints an even darker picture: Israeli soldiers were prepared to shoot starving Palestinian children at an aid site, and US-linked mercenaries were told not to intervene. This shocking revelation comes amid growing international outrage over the use of starvation as a weapon against Gaza’s besieged population.
Anthony Aguilar, a former Green Beret and US military contractor, recounted a harrowing incident at a Gaza aid distribution site where Israeli forces allegedly ordered snipers to kill unarmed Palestinian children. Aguilar had been hired to help secure food deliveries, but says he was stunned by the behavior of Israeli soldiers and by the complicity of the US-based mercenary firm he worked for.
Speaking in an interview released by US Senator Chris Van Hollen, Aguilar described a scene where a Palestinian man had lifted several children onto his shoulders to help them escape a crushing crowd desperate for food. Aguilar said an Israeli lieutenant colonel ordered him to force the children down from the berm. When Aguilar refused, emphasizing that they were children and the situation was under control, the officer allegedly responded with a threat: “Get them down now or I will.”
Initially, Aguilar dismissed the officer’s words as bluster. But another contractor, fluent in Hebrew, warned him that the officer had radioed nearby snipers and permitted them to shoot the children. “He just told the snipers to take these kids out,” the contractor told Aguilar. The children eventually fled before shots were fired, but the threat was real and chilling.
When Aguilar later challenged the officer, he says he was pulled aside by a senior figure at Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), the US mercenary company coordinating logistics in Gaza, who scolded him for defying Israeli orders. “Never say no to the client,” the executive allegedly told him. When Aguilar asked who the real client was, the answer shocked him: “The IDF works for them.”
Aguilar was under the impression that SRS was working on behalf of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US- and Israeli-backed entity involved in aid distribution. Still, it turned out that their orders were coming directly from the Israeli military. Aguilar claims SRS is closely tied to a former CIA officer and a US private equity firm in Chicago. He had been subcontracted through another firm, UG Solutions.
Aguilar, a decorated combat veteran with over two decades of service in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, has since cut ties with the contractors and spoken out in multiple interviews, alleging that Israeli soldiers and some US contractors have committed grave violations, including the killing of unarmed civilians. While GHF has tried to discredit him, accusing him of misconduct and misrepresentation, Aguilar stands by his testimony.
“I’m speaking out now because the American people deserve to know what their government is supporting in Gaza,” he said. “This is not just about politics. These are war crimes, and we cannot be silent.”
As the world watches Gaza starve, this account offers damning insight into the cold machinery of a military occupation backed by foreign powers. The children of Gaza—barefoot, starving, unarmed are not collateral damage. They are victims of a deliberate policy of collective punishment. And the silence of those funding and facilitating it makes them complicit.
