THOUSANDS STOOD in the sweltering sun, watched over by an Israeli tank, in a long queue snaking south from the second-largest city in the Gaza Strip. They had walked for miles to reach a food-distribution centre on the outskirts of Khan Younis. As the crowd grew, the American mercenaries who guarded the entrance to the compound fired into the air. They began handing out cardboard boxes, each containing flour, pasta, oil, and other dry goods calculated to last a family for a week. Those who had received their boxes quickly emptied them into white sacks and left.