Army veteran speaks at Columbia church about experience delivering aid in Gaza
Sam Roe
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Retired Lt. Col. Anthony Aguilar, a 25-year army veteran and humanitarian aid worker, spoke on Monday night about his experience in Gaza.
The event was sponsored by Missourians for Justice in Palestine and was hosted at United Methodist Church in Columbia.
Aguilar spent time earlier this year delivering aid as part of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and has spent the past few months as a self-described “whistleblower.” He has been speaking out against what he sees as a lack of aid and its poor administration.
“It was very apparent to me in the very beginning that the distribution of aid was not being done in line with humanitarian principles,” Aguilar said to the crowd. “The amount of aid that was bringing, that was being brought in was far, far below what was sufficient to feed the population.”
Aguilar claimed in some cases, there were only 20 people responsible for distributing aid to groups that numbered in the tens of thousands. He described the scene as being similar to “The Hunger Games” as they would drop off the food while the people fought over it.
“And the more that I, as each day went on of me being there, it became clearly apparent to me that it was an intentional design to further starve the population,” Aguilar said.
“To displace the population for militarized objectives [and] to essentially weaponize food to a starving population.”
The discussion also focused on the current ceasefire deal in Gaza, which Aguilar sees as ineffective, saying leaders need to step up, as there are still people dying in the conflict.