Human rights groups say the new mechanism sidesteps international humanitarian norms and gives Israel more control over who lives and who starves
GAZA — Israel and its all-weather ally, the United States, are pushing ahead with a controversial new aid programme for Palestinians called the ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ despite widespread condemnation and opposition to the initiative.
The foundation is expected to begin operations this week in the besieged enclave where Israel has imposed a devastating blockade on aid delivery since March 2, pushing millions of people to the verge of starvation and death.
Touted as a mechanism to streamline humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under siege, the plan has already been rejected by the United Nations and condemned by human rights groups as ethically compromised and politically driven.
“This particular distribution plan does not accord with our basic principles, including those of impartiality, neutrality, independence, and we will not be participating in this,” said UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq last week.
Last week, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher also criticised the US and Israel-backed aid strategy, warning that it is not a genuine effort to help civilians in need.
“It is a fig leaf for further violence and displacement,” he told the UN Security Council. “It is a cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction.”
Even within the foundation, there’s been pushback.
Jake Wood, who served as executive director of GHF for two months, resigned a day before the initiative’s launch, saying the operation could not uphold core humanitarian principles “humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence,” which he will not abandon.
The foundation’s board was quick to express “disappointment” at his departure but insisted that the mission would move forward.
“Our trucks are loaded and ready to go,” it said, pledging to reach over one million Palestinians by the end of the week through direct aid deliveries.
Yet aid groups argue that no aid system can succeed under current conditions.
Since March 2, Israel has blocked all humanitarian food aid into Gaza, according to multiple UN agencies.
Satellite imagery shows hundreds of aid trucks stalled at the Rafah crossing, unable to access the enclave. At Israeli-controlled crossings, aid is either obstructed or severely delayed, with arbitrary restrictions on who can deliver food and where it can go.
Satellite images show hundreds of lorries carrying humanitarian aid unable to access besieged Gaza from Rafah border crossing.
— TRT World (@trtworld) February 23, 2024
The flow of aid entering Gaza has dried up to around 57 trucks a day on average in the past 12 days, says UN pic.twitter.com/d5jcj83TRr
According to a recent report by the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), half a million Palestinians, or one in every five people in Gaza, are now facing famine-level hunger.
These levels of deprivation are indeed the result of deliberate Israeli policy, one that has turned hunger into a weapon of war.
Why is the foundation controversial?
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a US-backed funding mechanism being created in coordination with Israel, reportedly to centralise the flow of aid into Gaza.
According to details of the plan, the foundation will rely on US-based contractors to secure a network of ‘aid hubs’ across the territory, apparently operating without the direct involvement of Israeli forces on the ground.
However, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has stated that Israeli troops will be stationed “at a distance” from these hubs to provide additional protection.
The distribution model envisions aid being handed out only once or twice a month at designated sites, primarily in the form of pre-packaged meals, hygiene kits, and basic medical supplies.
However, rights organisations are deeply sceptical of the plan, arguing that it is designed not to help Palestinians but to control them, bypassing established humanitarian frameworks, lacking transparency, and undermining core humanitarian principles.
In a joint statement last week, leading humanitarian organisations strongly condemned the newly launched GHF, calling it a “dangerous, politicised sham”.
The GHF relies entirely on Israeli coordination and uses Israeli-controlled access points such as the Port of Ashdod and the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing.
This structure reinforces the very mechanisms responsible for blocking essential supplies like food, fuel, and medicine from reaching Gaza.
Also, by limiting aid to centralised pickup points, the plan excludes the wounded, elderly, and disabled, those least able to travel through rubble to collect supplies.
Moreover, the initiative effectively shields Israel from accountability by pretending that the problem is the absence of aid infrastructure, rather than the fact that Israel is blocking, bombing, and starving a population under military occupation.
“Let us be clear: the biggest barrier to humanitarian access in Gaza is not inefficiency or corruption, it is the deliberate restriction of aid by the Israeli government. The restriction of aid is being used as a weapon of war,” the statement read.
A system built to fail?
There are fears that by creating parallel structures outside the UN system, the US and its allies may be trying to build a new political order in Gaza without ending the siege.
But as humanitarian groups have warned repeatedly, no aid system can function while Gaza remains under Israeli blockade.
Trucks cannot move freely. Workers are being killed. Warehouses are being bombed. The problem, aid groups say, is not coordination. It is intentional deprivation.
C. TRT World
