Controversial humanitarian group created in Gaza as alternative to UN ceasing operations
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The US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, established to distribute aid to Gaza as an alternative to the United Nations but which Palestinians said was endangering the lives of civilians as they tried to obtain food, announced Monday that it would end its operations.
The company had already closed its distribution sites after a US-brokered ceasefire took effect six weeks ago in Gaza. It announced its permanent closure on Monday, claiming to have fulfilled its mission. “We have succeeded in our mission to show that there is a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” GHF Director John Acree said in a statement.
The GHF’s operations were shrouded in secrecy during its short period of activity. Launched with support from the United States and Israel as an alternative to the United Nations, the group never revealed its funding sources and little about the armed contractors who operated the sites.
He said his goal was to deliver aid to Gaza without it being diverted by Hamas.
Risking your life to get help
Palestinians, aid workers and health officials said the system forced aid seekers to risk their lives to reach sites past Israeli troops who were securing the area. Soldiers often opened fire, killing hundreds of people, according to witnesses and videos posted on social media. The Israeli military says it only fired warning shots to control crowds or if its troops were in danger.
According to a new report from Amnesty International, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a US-Israeli-backed group that took over aid distribution in Gaza more than a month ago – uses a militarized aid mechanism that allows Israel to use starvation as a weapon of war and commit genocide against Palestinians. Amnesty International’s Budour Hassan says people on the ground describe getting aid as an “upsetting” task.
GHF said there was no violence at the aid sites themselves, but acknowledged the potential dangers people faced when walking there. However, contractors working at the sites, supported by video accounts, said U.S. security guards fired live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scrambled for food.
Acree said the GHF would hand over its work to the U.S.-led center in Israel overseeing the ceasefire in Gaza, called the Civil-Military Coordination Center.
“The GHF has been in discussions with the CMCC and international organizations for weeks about the way forward and it is clear that they will adopt and expand the model driven by the GHF,” he said.
Tommy Piggott, deputy spokesperson for the US State Department, said on social media platform X that GHF had “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners”.
UN opposes GHF
GHF began operating in late May, after Israel cut off food deliveries to Gaza for three months, pushing the population toward starvation.
Israel planned for the group of private contractors to replace the U.N. food distribution system, saying Hamas was diverting large amounts of aid. The UN has denied the allegations.
The UN had opposed the creation of the GHF, saying the system gave Israel control over food distribution and could force the displacement of Palestinians. Throughout the war, the UN led a massive humanitarian effort with other aid groups, distributing food, medicine, fuel and other supplies to hundreds of centers around Gaza.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a US-backed Gaza aid operation is “inherently dangerous”, accusing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation of militarizing aid and forcing displacement.
In the statement, GHF said it had delivered more than three million boxes of food to Gaza, totaling 187 million meals.
Hostage remains found
Meanwhile, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group said in a statement on Monday that it had located the body of a hostage in an area controlled by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. It was not specified when the handover would take place.
The hostage’s body is one of three still in Gaza.
Hamas and Israel signed a truce on October 9, ending two years of devastating war. But the agreement left the most intractable disputes on the agenda, thereby freezing the conflict without resolving it.
As part of the deal, Hamas released the 20 surviving hostages still held in Gaza in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees of war held by Israel.
The agreement also included the return of the remains of 28 hostages in exchange for the remains of 360 activists. Since the deal was struck, both sides have accused each other of deadly violations of existing commitments in the deal and of opposing further steps required by U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
The war began with the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel, which killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
Since then, more than 69,700 Palestinians have been killed and more than 170,800 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures, but has said women and children make up the majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government and staffed by medical professionals, keeps detailed records considered generally reliable by independent experts.
