Gazans Are Being Forced to Play a Real Life Squid Game for Food: Report

According to a chilling report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, IDF commanders are ordering soldiers to fire directly into unarmed crowds lining up for food. The policy has been dubbed Operation Salted Fish — the Israeli name for the children’s game “Red Light, Green Light” — in an act of cruelty straight out of Netflix’s Squid Game.

The four aid sites for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operation in May, and since then Haaretz confirms at least 19 shootings, with more reported. “It’s a killing field,” one IDF whistleblower said. “Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day.”

From Haaretz:

The distribution centers typically open for just one hour each morning. According to officers and soldiers who served in their areas, the IDF fires at people who arrive before opening hours to prevent them from approaching, or again after the centers close, to disperse them. Since some of the shooting incidents occurred at night – ahead of the opening – it’s possible that some civilians couldn’t see the boundaries of the designated area.

Making matters worse, there isn’t enough food to go around, and rations are distributed chaotically. If Palestinians in the Gaza Strip don’t rush the aid sites as soon as they open, they risk going hungry.

The people seeking aid are “treated like a hostile force,” one soldier said. “No crowd-control measures, no tear gas, just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.”

The same soldier continued, “We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces.” They added, “I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.”

The IDF’s Military Advocate General has ordered an investigation into suspected war crimes.

Consequence stands with the Palestinian people and the millions of Israeli citizens who oppose the ongoing genocide. Hopefully reality will stop resembling one of the grimmest shows ever produced. But the power of art remains its capacity to transform us. Almost every person who watched Squid Game imagined themselves in that iconic “Red Light, Green Light” lineup. Now imagine doing it every day.