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The U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, set up to distribute aid to Gaza as an alternative to the United Nations, but which Palestinians said endangered the lives of civilians as they tried to get food, said Monday it would shutter operations.
The company had already closed distribution sites after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect six weeks ago in Gaza. It announced Monday that it was permanently shutting down, claiming it had fulfilled its mission. “We have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” GHF director John Acree said in a statement.
The operations of the GHF were shrouded in secrecy during its short time in operation. Launched with U.S. and Israeli backing as an alternative to the United Nations, the group never revealed its sources of funding and little about the armed contractors who operated the sites.
It said its goal was to deliver aid to Gaza without it being diverted by Hamas.
Risking life to get aid
Palestinians, aid workers and health officials have said the system forced aid-seekers to risk their lives to reach the sites by passing Israeli troops who secured the locations. Soldiers often opened fire, killing hundreds, according to witnesses and videos posted to social media. The Israeli military says it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.
According to a new Amnesty International report, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — a U.S.- and Israel-backed group that took over aid distribution in Gaza over a month ago — uses a militarized aid mechanism that enables Israel to use starvation as a weapon of war and inflict genocide against Palestinians. Budour Hassan of Amnesty International says those on the ground describe acquiring aid as a ‘harrowing’ endeavour.
GHF said there was no violence at the aid sites themselves but acknowledged the potential dangers people faced when travelling to them on foot. However, contractors working at the sites, backed by video accounts, said the American security guards fired live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scrambled for food.
Acree said that GHF would hand off its work to the U.S.-led centre in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire, called the Civil-Military Coordination Center.
“GHF has been in talks with CMCC and international organizations now for weeks about the way forward and it’s clear they will be adopting and expanding the model GHF piloted,” he said.
Tommy Piggott, a deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said on the social media platform X that GHF had “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners.”
UN opposed GHF
GHF began operating in late May, after Israel had halted food deliveries to Gaza for three months, pushing the population toward famine.
Israel intended for the private contractor group to replace the UN food distribution system, claiming Hamas was diverting large amounts of aid. The UN denied the claims.
The UN had opposed the creation of 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 at hundreds of centres around Gaza.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres says a U.S.-backed aid operation in Gaza is ‘inherently unsafe,’ accusing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation of militarizing aid and forcing displacement.
In the release, GHF said it had delivered more than three million food boxes to Gaza, totalling 187 million meals.
Remains of hostage located
Meantime, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group said in a statement later on Monday that it had located the body of a hostage in an area controlled by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. It did not say when the handover would take place.
The hostage’s body is one of three still in Gaza.
Hamas and Israel signed a truce on Oct. 9, halting two years of devastating warfare. But the agreement left the most intractable disputes for further talks, freezing the conflict without resolving it.
As part of the deal, Hamas released all 20 surviving hostages still held in Gaza in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees held by Israel.
The agreement also provided for the return of the remains of 28 hostages in exchange for the remains of 360 militants. Both sides have, since the deal, accused each other of deadly breaches of existing commitments in the agreement and of pushing back against later steps required by U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
The war began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
Since then, over 69,700 Palestinians have been killed and over 170,800 injured, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.
