while livestreaming on Tuesday.

Counting will begin immediately and the winner will be known that evening or in the early hours of the following day. The candidate who receives the most votes will be deemed the winner, even if they don’t win 50 percent of the votes.In the early hours of Tuesday morning, thousands of

people made the long journey to south Gaza, many walking tens of kilometres in the scorching summer heat to reach a newly established aid distribution centre run by the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).Among them was Walaa Abu Sa’da (35), mother of three children who decided to go to Rafah by herself.“My children were on the verge of starving. No milk, no food, not even baby formula. They cried day and night, and I had to beg neighbours for scraps,” Abu Sa’da told

While the previous United Nations-led distribution network operated about 400 sites across the Strip, the, guarded by armed private security contractors working for a US company, has set up only four “mega-sites” for Gaza’s population of about two million Palestinians.

Three of GHF’s distribution sites are in Rafah, situated within areas where the Israeli military has issued evacuation warnings. The fourth site is in Gaza City, near the boundary with Deir el-Balah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering. None of the distribution points are located north of the Netzarim Corridor.

The UN and aid groups say the GHF does not abide by humanitarian principles, accusing it of weaponising aid and warning that it could serve to depopulate northern Gaza, as planned by the Israeli military.Vladislav, like other businessmen who spoke to Al Jazeera, declined to talk about his supply chains in detail.

"Russian business does everything possible to fill the gap. For many,  this is an opportunity to carve out their niche in the market," Natalia Zubarevich, a professor at Moscow State University and an expert in regional socioeconomic development, told Al Jazeera.“The market cannot be empty if you can profit from it.”

Still, the Russian market has changed in some ways since the invasion."Supply chains are now longer, goods become more expensive,” Burmistrov from Infoline-Analytics told Al Jazeera.