Humanitarian aid as an instrument of domination: how distribution practices affect social cohesion, selfhood and individual agency in Gaza

At the heart of the protracted humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and with more than twenty-two months passed since the war broke out on 7 October 2023, humanitarian aid has become an inseparable part of the daily scene for the Strip's residents — not only because of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe produced by the blockade, the military operations, the demolition and destruction, and the displacement, but also because more than two-thirds of the population depend on it as their main source of food and basic needs. This growing dependence has transformed aid from limited emergency interventions into a structural element in the management of daily life, so that the survival of individuals and families is tied directly to the regularity — or disruption — of the flow of this aid.

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