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Former Green Beret Anthony Aguilar says he witnessed Israeli forces shoot and kill a Palestinian child just moments after the boy received food at an aid distribution center in Gaza.
Aguilar, a former worker at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), described the incident in harrowing detail during a July 28 interview on the UnXeptable podcast.
He said the boy, Amir, had walked 12 kilometers barefoot, dressed in tattered clothes, to reach the aid distribution center on May 28. After receiving food, Amir set it down and approached Aguilar.
He placed “his hands on my face, on the side of my face, on my cheeks, these frail, skeleton, emaciated hands — dirty — and he puts them on my face, and he kissed me,” Aguilar recalled. “He said thank you in English, and he collected his items, and he walked back to the group.”
Moments later, Aguilar said, Israeli forces opened fire with pepper spray, tear gas, stun grenades, and bullets.
“They’re shooting into this crowd and Palestinians — civilians, human beings — are dropping to the ground, getting shot,” he said. “And Amir was one of them.”
The emotional account quickly circulated online, drawing sharp debate on X. Some users accused Aguilar of fabricating the story and claimed he had been blacklisted from Special Forces circles. Others praised him for speaking out.
In a separate BBC interview July 25, Aguilar accused Israeli troops and US contractors of firing artillery, mortar, and tank shells into unarmed civilian populations during his time at the GHF.
“Without question,” he said, “I witnessed war crimes…In my entire career, I have never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population.”
The GHF, which is supported by both Israel and the US, denied Aguilar’s claims, according to The Times of Israel. In a press briefing, the group said it found no evidence to support his allegations and accused him of presenting “misleading videos to push his false narrative” and claimed he was terminated for misconduct.
Aguilar disputed those claims in a July 31 interview on Breaking Points, where he also revisited Amir’s death and other scenes from his time in Gaza. He explained that UG Solutions — the company that contacted him to join the mission — had been contracted to provide personnel for GHF.
He showed what he said was his resignation letter and pushed back on GHF’s claim that he was fired.
“The metadata on this document shows the twelfth of June,” he said, adding that he wrote and printed the letter on June 12 and delivered it to leadership the next day.
The letter read: “Due to the nature of how operations are conducted, I can no longer support this operation.”
He added that GHF and UG Solutions “continue to say they fired me,” but said they “have not produced a termination letter, an HR letter, nothing.”
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has drawn global concern. President Donald Trump has repeatedly decried the starvation there. Earlier this week, he pledged to coordinate with European allies to deliver food and aid to civilians.
