Amid hunger, siege, and bombings, Gaza turns survival into a deadly game without rules, where each day is a rigged match in which losing means death, and winning means surviving only until the next round.
Squid Game is a series where desperate individuals agree to take part in deadly games to survive, controlled by a system that sets arbitrary rules and watches their suffering as entertainment.
In the Gaza Strip, under Israeli military control and managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the Palestinian population is forced into an even more cruel deadly game, where the rules are neither fixed nor clear but designed to be broken or impossible to follow, turning access to food into a daily risk of death.
Shared dynamics:
A closed environment and desperation:
- Squid Game: There is no way out; participants’ lives are in the hands of the organizers.
- Gaza: Total blockade makes it impossible to escape hunger and war. Residents, desperate, face the choice between starving or risking being killed for a food package.
Total control over resources:
- Squid Game: The games offer food and money only to those who survive.
- Gaza: The GHF controls food distribution, with operations typically lasting 9-13 minutes per day, sometimes starting hours before the announced time or ending before they even begin, forcing people to sleep near the centers or walk 6-7 km through combat zones for a box of rice, lentils, and biscuits.
Chaos as the rule:
- Squid Game: The rules are strict; breaking them means death.
- Gaza: There are no clear rules. GHF announcements change constantly, creating a “game” in which:
- If you go too early, you risk being shot.
- If you wait, you risk arriving after closure.
- Sometimes openings are announced after the center has already closed.
- Other times, no announcements are made at all, generating panic and sudden rushes under Israeli sniper fire.
Some Israeli soldiers have described these centers as “extermination camps” or have compared the operations to Squid Game’s “red light, green light.”
Suffering as spectacle and a tool of power:
- Squid Game: Deaths are entertainment for wealthy spectators.
- Gaza: Images of Palestinians standing in line under bombardment for a food package become a geopolitical weapon and psychological pressure, while Israeli authorities exercise power over the population through hunger.
Filtering the population:
The GHF system excludes the elderly, women, disabled, and children. Only young men, capable of enduring exhausting walks and risking bullets, can approach the centers, turning access to food into a “natural selection” used to systematically eliminate young males and weaken Palestinian families.
A game repeated weekly:
Like Squid Game’s round-based challenges, Palestinians must repeat the “trial” each week to receive a new aid package, knowing they may die just to try to survive.
Key differences: Gaza is worse than Squid Game
In Squid Game, the rules are clear, however deadly.
In Gaza, the rules do not exist or are a trap.
In Squid Game, there is a chance of victory.
In Gaza, there is no chance of winning: the “game” is designed to reduce, control, and terrorize the population.
Conclusion
The comparison between Squid Game and Israeli management in Gaza is not rhetorical exaggeration but a harsh, real metaphor:
- Turning survival into a deadly game.
- Using hunger as a weapon of control.
- Exploiting arbitrary rules to kill, filter, and weaken a people.
The difference, however, is that Gaza is not a TV series. It is the daily reality of those who, amid hunger, siege, and bombardment, are forced to play a rigged game where losing means dying, and winning means surviving only until the next round.
Sources
- Mada Masr, “The deadly game of Gaza’s aid distribution,” July 2025. [Read]
- Haaretz, testimonies of Israeli soldiers on operations near GHF centers, July 2025. [Read]
- The Guardian, reporting on Israel’s alternative aid system and its implementation, March 2025. [Read]
- New York Times, investigation into the planning and control of Gaza aid distribution, May 2025. [Read]
- UN Security Council briefing by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, May 2025. [Read]
- Statements by UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, May 2025. [Read]
- Washington Post, on the operational planning of Israel’s aid distribution model, April 2025. [Read]
- Strategy paper: Yotam HaCohen, Light at the End of the Tunnel: Toward a Civil Campaign, July 2024. [Read]
