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The United States government should step up efforts to protect civilians in central Africa from abuses by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a coalition of 39 human rights and humanitarian organizations said today. The organizations urged the Obama administration to appoint a special envoy for the African Great Lakes region with a mandate extending to LRA-affected areas, to support stronger United Nations peacekeeping and to intensify efforts to arrest three LRA leaders being sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
May 24 is the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's signing into law the bipartisan LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, the most widely supported, Africa-specific legislation in recent US history, which committed the US to help civilians in central Africa threatened by the LRA. The US government published its strategy for action against the LRA in November 2010 and outlined four primary goals: apprehending or removing the group's top leaders, protecting civilians from LRA attacks, encouraging escape and defection from the LRA, and providing humanitarian assistance to affected communities. Since then, the US has primarily focused its strategy on providing enhanced logistical and intelligence support for Ugandan-led military operations against the LRA, which the US had already been supporting since 2008.
"Congress gave the Obama administration an unprecedented mandate to end LRA atrocities and help affected communities recover," said Michael Poffenberger, executive director of Resolve. "The administration has improved some of its efforts, but, by and large, has failed to strengthen civilian protection or apprehend the LRA's top leaders."
The adoption of the US legislation on the LRA gave hope to terrorized communities across central Africa who felt abandoned and forgotten, the organizations said. The governments of Congo, the Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan - countries where the group is currently active - have not shown sufficient capability or resolve to protect civilians adequately from LRA abuses. UN peacekeepers, meanwhile, are too few in numbers and have little capacity or will to protect civilians beyond the borders of their bases.
"Many of us believed that President Obama's commitment to addressing the LRA threat would finally help stop our suffering," said Abbe Benoit Kinalegu of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Dungu, Haut Uele, Congo. "Yet one year later, we continue to live in fear as the LRA's attacks have shown no signs of decreasing."
Continued Threat to Civilians and Regional Stability
Since September 2008, the LRA has killed nearly 2,400 civilians and abducted about 3,400 others, according to Human Rights Watch and UN documentation. These atrocities are continuing in northern Democratic Republic of Congo, eastern Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan. In the first four months of 2011, the LRA carried out at least 120 attacks, killing 81 civilians and abducting 193, many of them children. 97 of these attacks were in Congo, representing nearly half the total number of attacks reported in 2010. More than 38,000 Congolese civilians were newly displaced in 2011 due to LRA attacks, adding to the hundreds of thousands in the region who had already fled their homes. LRA attacks are also undermining international investments in peace and stability in Southern Sudan, ahead of its independence in July 2011.
The LRA, which originated in Uganda, has carried out a brutal campaign of killings, rapes, mutilations, and mass abductions of children for 25 years. Three LRA leaders - Joseph Kony, Okot Odhiambo, and Dominic Ongwen - are sought by the ICC under arrest warrants issued in July 2005 for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in northern Uganda. All three remain at large and have been implicated in new atrocities since the arrest warrants were issued.
The LRA spreads more panic and fear with each attack, devastating livelihoods and forcing whole communities to flee. In the past few months, groups of over 20 well-armed LRA combatants, together with dozens of abducted children pressed into LRA service as combatants or porters, have attacked town centers in northern Congo. They have also begun attacking Congolese army bases, diverging from their usual strategy of choosing civilian "soft targets."
Accounts from people abducted by the LRA who recently managed to escape show that the LRA command structure remains intact. Scattered LRA groups are communicating with each other, and the rebels are continuing to abduct and train new fighters.
Need for Expanded Efforts to Implement LRA Strategy
The United States has been by far the most active government outside central Africa in addressing the LRA. But better coordination and more dedicated resources from the United States could produce significant improvements, the organizations said.
Specifically, the organizations called on the United States to appoint a special envoy for the African Great Lakes region, with a mandate extending to the LRA-affected regions of central Africa and reporting directly to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If given sufficient resources and experienced staff to coordinate efforts in all countries involved and across different agencies of the government, such an envoy could help ensure that the United States is properly equipped to deal with the LRA's cross-border nature.
The envoy's work should be strengthened through regular engagement among officials across relevant US government agencies at both the working staff level and the more senior Deputies Committee or Principals Committee level. This should include tasking a point person at the Deputies Committee or Principals Committee level.
Senior-level US political engagement is also needed to help manage tensions and encourage cooperation among regional governments and other key actors, the groups said. In addition to helping coordinate regional governments, the US should rally serious political engagement and dedicated resources from European partners, the African Union (AU), and the UN Security Council to address the LRA. In particular, ambitions by the AU to help coordinate and facilitate greater regional and international responses to the crisis have stalled and are in need of new momentum.
"The US should lead robust multilateral efforts to overcome years of stalled attempts to address the LRA's threat to civilian populations," said Poffenberger.
Capable Force Needed to Protect Civilians
There is no international peacekeeping presence in the LRA-affected areas of eastern Central African Republic, and fewer than 1,000 UN peacekeeping troops are deployed to northern Congo's Haut Uele district. There are no peacekeepers at all in the neighboring Bas Uele district, even though some of the worst recent LRA atrocities have occurred there and Kony, the LRA leader, is believed to have been there recently. Even where UN peacekeepers are deployed, they often lack the operational capacity or willingness to protect civilians beyond the limits of their own bases.
The US government should take immediate steps, including using its diplomatic influence with other Security Council members and UN member states, to ensure a more effective peacekeeping presence in the LRA-affected regions, the organizations said.
As part of its protection strategy, the US government has made a commitment to build up communications and road infrastructure in the LRA-affected areas, which will eventually improve communities' ability to report attacks or the presence of LRA groups. However, a lack of funds has limited planned communications projects; some people have gained access to life-saving phone and radio networks, but hundreds of thousands of others remain isolated.
"A '911' call can be a lifesaver, but only if those on the other end of the line can bring help fast," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "More peacekeepers are urgently needed in these areas to effectively protect civilians at risk of LRA attacks."
Congolese armed forces, which are insufficiently equipped and poorly paid, have demonstrated little capacity to protect civilians. Soldiers deployed in small units to remote posts in the Uele districts often have no means of transport or communications with their commanders, and, lacking ammunition, are often forced to flee with the population when the LRA attacks.
Congolese army soldiers have also been responsible for serious abuses against the civilians they are charged with protecting, including killing, rape, torture, and arbitrary arrest. In mid-March 2011, for example, soldiers based in Nambia, Niangara territory, Haut Uele, tortured two children, ages 8 to 10, with burning sticks and melted plastic. The children had been accused of stealing a radio. In recent months, Congolese soldiers repeatedly attacked the nomadic Mbororo herder community, committing numerous rapes and killings, and pillaging cattle while forcing community members deep into the forests or across the borders into the Central African Republic or Southern Sudan.
Congolese and Ugandan authorities should investigate any abuses and hold perpetrators accountable in fair trials, the organizations said. The United States should ensure that it does not support any Congolese or Ugandan army unit responsible for serious human rights abuses.
Greater International Efforts Needed to Apprehend LRA Commanders
Apprehending Kony and other senior LRA commanders remains a critical step toward enhancing broader civilian protection efforts, the organizations said. Experience in other conflict zones illustrates that an operation to apprehend people wanted for serious crimes in violation of international law may require specially trained military or police units supported by expert, actionable intelligence and rapid reaction capabilities, including helicopters. In the case of the LRA, such operations should be carried out in parallel with enhanced efforts to encourage LRA commanders and fighters to defect.
The Uganda People's Defence Force lacks adequate intelligence and rapid reaction capacity. A US proposal to send military advisors to assist Ugandan efforts could help address some of these gaps, but even with additional support, the Ugandan army is unlikely to acquire the needed capabilities in the near future, the groups said. Operations are further hampered by deep-seated mistrust and suspicion between the Ugandan and Congolese armies, nearly sabotaging collaborative efforts to protect civilians and pursue the LRA leadership. There are unconfirmed reports that Congolese authorities have called on the Ugandan army to leave Congolese soil by mid-June.
Authorities in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, and in the LRA-affected regions have consistently played down the LRA threat, leading to public protests and tensions between the authorities and local populations. Similarly, Ugandan authorities have repeatedly stated that the LRA has been defeated, despite the new LRA attacks and the fact that the LRA leadership remains at large.
"Congolese and Ugandan denials and inaction do not change the fact that tens of thousands of civilians in central Africa continue to live in fear of the next LRA attack," said John Bradshaw, executive director of the Enough Project. "One year since the passage of a landmark LRA law, the US, with its regional and international partners, has much more to do to move beyond marginal policy shifts and develop an enhanced apprehension strategy capable of decisively ending the LRA threat."
The following 39 organizations have signed on to this news release:
1. HelpAge International
2. Human Rights Watch
3. Organisation pour la Defense des Droits de l'Enfant Internationale
4. A Thousand Sisters, USA
5. ENOUGH Project, USA
6. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, USA
7. Invisible Children, USA
8. Resolve, USA
9. Action des Chretiens Activistes des Droits de l'Homme a Shabunda (ACADHOSHA), Democratic Republic of Congo
10. Action des Chretiens pour l'Abolition de la Torture (ACAT) - Nord Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
11. Action Globale pour la Promotion Sociale et la Paix (AGPSP)
12. Action Humanitaire et de Developpement Integral (AHDI)
13. Africa Justice, Peace, and Development (AJPD)
14. AJDI Doruma, Democratic Republic of Congo
15. Appuis aux femmes Diminue et Enfants Marginalises (AFEDEM), Democratic Republic of Congo
16. Blessed Aid, Democratic Republic of Congo
17. Bureau des Actions de Developpement et des Urgences (BADU), Democratic Republic of Congo
18. Centre des recherches pour l'Environnement, la Democratie et les Droits de L'Homme (CREDDHO)
19. Centre d'Etudes et de Formation Populaire pour les Droits de l'Homme (CEFOP/DH), Democratic Republic of Congo
20. Centre d'Observation des Droits de l'Homme et d'Assistance Sociale (CODHAS), Democratic Republic of Congo
21. Centre pour la Paix et les Droits de l'Homme - Peace and Human Rights Center (CPDH-PHRC), Democratic Republic of Congo
22. Collectif des Organisations des Jeunes Solidaires du Congo (COJESKI), Democratic Republic of Congo
23. CONVERGENCES, Democratic Republic of Congo
24. Defense et Assistance aux Femmes et Enfants Vulnerables en Afrique (DAFEVA), Democratic Republic of Congo
25. Doruma Civil Society, Democratic Republic of Congo
26. Encadrement des Femmes Indigenes et des Menages vulnerables (EFIM), Democratic Republic of Congo
27. Groupe Lotus, Democratic Republic of Congo
28. Human Rights Activists of Niangara Territory, Democratic Republic of Congo
29. Initiative Congolaise pour la Justice et la Paix (ICJP), Democratic Republic of Congo
30. Initiatives Alpha, Democratic Republic of Congo
31. Ligue des Jeunes de Grand Lac (LJGL), Democratic Republic of Congo
32. Observatoire Congolais des Prisons (OCP), Democratic Republic of Congo
33. ReseauProvincial des ONG de Droits Humains au Congo (REPRODHOC), Democratic Republic of Congo
34. Solidarite des Volontaires pour l'Humanite, Democratic Republic of Congo
35. Solidarite Feminine pour la Paix et le Developpement Integral (SOFEPADI), Democratic Republic of Congo
36. UJDL Youth Association of Doruma, Democratic Republic of Congo
37. Union d'Action pour les Initiatives du Developpement (UAID), Democratic Republic of Congo
38. Diocese of Nzara, South Sudan
39. Nzara Comboni Missionary Sisters, South Sudan
"There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed," U.S. District Judge William Sessions III said, referring to Öztürk's article urging divestment from Israel.
Rümeysa Öztürk, one of several pro-Palestine scholars kidnapped and imprisoned by the Trump administration under its dubious interpretation of an 18th-century law and a Cold War-era national security measure, was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody Friday following a federal judge's order.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions III in Vermont ruled that Öztürk—a 30-year-old Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University in Massachusetts and Fulbright scholar—was illegally detained in March, when masked plainclothes federal agents snatched her off a suburban Boston street in broad daylight in what eyewitnesses and advocates likened to a kidnapping and flew her to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana.
"Thank you so much for all the support and love," Öztürk told supporters outside the facility following her release.
The government admits that Öztürk committed no crime. She was targeted because of an
opinion piece published in Tufts Daily advocating divestment from Israel amid the U.S.-backed nation's genocidal assault on Gaza and its apartheid, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization in the rest of Palestine. Öztürk was arrested despite a U.S. State Department determination that there were no grounds for revoking her visa.
"There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed," said Sessions, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. "That literally is the case."
BREAKING: a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately release on bail Rumeysa Ozturk, a Muslim grad student at Tufts University who was abducted and abused by ICE agents, all because she wrote an editorial, yes, an editorial, critical of the Israeli government's genocide.
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— CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations) ( @cairnational.bsky.social) May 9, 2025 at 11:12 AM
"There is no evidence here as to the motivation, absent consideration of the op-ed, so that creates unto itself a very significant substantial claim that the op-ed—that is, the expression of one's opinion as ordinarily protected by the First Amendment—form the basis of this particular detention," the judge continued, adding that Öztürk's "continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of people in this country who are not citizens."
"There is absolutely no evidence that she has engaged in violence, or advocated violence, she has no criminal record," Sessions noted. "She has done nothing other than, essentially, attend her university and expand her contacts in her community in such a supportive way."
"Her continued detention cannot stand," he added.
The Trump administration has openly flouted judge's rulings—including a U.S. Supreme Court order—that direct it to release detained immigrants. Sessions' Friday ruling follows his earlier order to send Öztürk to Vermont and Wednesday's 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmation of the judge's directive, both of which have been ignored by the administration.
Seeing that Öztürk was still in ICE custody hours after his order, Sessions reiterated his directive Friday afternoon.
"In light of the court's finding of no flight risk and no danger to the community, petitioner is to be released from ICE custody immediately on her own recognizance, without any form of body-worn GPS or other ICE monitoring at this time," the judge wrote.
Multiple media outlets reported Öztürk's release Friday afternoon.
Mahsa Khanbabai, Öztürk's attorney, toldCourthouse News Service she's "relieved and ecstatic" that her client has been ordered released.
"Unfortunately, it is 45 days too late," Khanbabai lamented. "She has been imprisoned all these days for simply writing an op-ed that called for human rights and dignity for the people in Palestine. When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?"
The Trump administration has dubiously invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the president to detain dor deport citizens of countries with which the U.S. is at war, in a bid to justify Öztürk's persecution. The administration has also cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to order the expulsion of noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.
"When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?"
Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who lied about Öztürk supporting Hamas—has used such determinations to target people for engaging in constitutionally protected speech and protest.
"We do it every day," Rubio said in March in defense of the policy. "Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas."
Rubio has invoked the law to target numerous other students who the government admits committed no crimes. These include Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Yunseo Chung—all permanent U.S. residents—as well as Ranjani Srinivasan and others. Far-right, pro-Israel groups like Betar and Canary Mission have compiled lists containing the names of these and other pro-Palestine students that are shared with the Trump administration for possible deportation.
Foreign nationals—and some U.S. citizens wrongfully swept up in the Trump administration's mass deportation effort—are imprisoned in facilities including private, for-profit detention centers, where there are widespread reports of poor conditions and alleged abuses.
These include denial of medical care, insufficient access to feminine hygiene products, and rotten food at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where Öztürk—who, according to Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), has received no religious or dietary accommodations and had her hijab forcibly removed—is being held.
Öztürk also suffers from asthma and told Sessions via Zoom Friday that her attacks have increased behind bars due to stress. Dr. Jessica McCannon, a pulmonologist, testified that Öztürk's asthma appears to be poorly controlled in ICE custody, according to
courtroom coverage on the social media site Bluesky by freelance journalist Joshua J. Friedman.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was among those who on Friday demanded Öztürk's immediate release, while other lawmakers and human rights and free speech defenders celebrated Sessions' decision.
"Rümeysa Öztürk has finally been ordered released," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said on social media. "She has been unlawfully detained for more than six weeks in an ICE facility in Louisiana, more than 1,500 miles away from Somerville. This is a victory for Rümeysa, for justice, and for our democracy."
In the United States, we guarantee free speech. No one here will lose their rights and freedom for publishing an op-ed. This is a win for the rule of law. Rümeysa is free!
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— Representative Becca Balint ( @balint.house.gov) May 9, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement that "it is unfathomable that in the United States legal system, it takes 45 days for a judge to rule that people can't be put behind bars for writing op-eds the government doesn't like."
"Without a system committed to its principles, the Constitution is just words on paper, and they don't mean much if this can happen here," Stern continued. "Öztürk's abduction and imprisonment is one of the most shameful chapters in First Amendment history."
"We're thankful that Judge Sessions moved it one step closer to an end and we call on the Trump administration to release Öztürk immediately and not attempt to stall with any further authoritarian nonsense," he added.
Amid President Donald Trump's defunding threats and pressure from ICE officials, universities have told "many hundreds" of international students that they have lost their immigration status and must immediately self-deport. These notifications were based on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) termination of students' records on the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a database used by schools and authorities to access visa information.
Although DHS admitted in court that it had no authority to use SEVIS to revoke students' status, the Trump administration still canceled more than 1,800 visas before reversing course last month pending an ICE policy revamp.
In addition to moving to deport pro-Palestine students, the Trump administration is sending Latin American immigrants—including wrongfully expelled Maryland man Kilmar Abrego García—to a notorious prison in El Salvador, and the president has repeatedly threatened to send natural-born U.S. citizens there.
As with Öztürk and other detained students, the Trump administration has dubiously invoked the Alien Enemies Act in trying to deport García and others. However, federal judges—including multiple Trump appointees—have thwarted some of these efforts.
On Friday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that Trump and his advisers are "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus as a means of overcoming judicial pushback against the administration's deportation blitz.
"Well, the Constitution is clear—and that of course is the supreme law of the land—that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion," Miller told reporters at the White House. No foreign entity has invaded the United States since Japanese forces landed in the Aleutian Islands in the then-territory of Alaska during World War II.
Critics pointed out that Miller's proposal is, in fact, blatantly unconstitutional.
"Since it appears needs to be said: The authority to suspend habeas corpus lies with Congress, not the president, and is only legal during extreme circumstances of rebellion or invasion," Democratic pollster and strategist Matt McDermott said on Bluesky. "Stephen Miller is full of shit."
It wasn't just Democrats and Palestine defenders who cheered Sessions' ruling Friday. Billy Binion, who covers "all things injustice" for the libertarian website Reason, said on social media that the government's "entire case against her is that... she wrote an op-ed."
"Hard to overstate how bleak—and frankly embarrassing—it is that the Trump administration wants to jail and deport someone for speech," he continued. "In America."
"Working-class seniors pay into Social Security and Medicare their whole careers so they can enjoy a dignified retirement, but they end up paying a much larger share of their income in taxes than billionaires because the tax code is rigged in favor of the rich."
Social Security and Medicare protect tens of millions of American senior citizens from poverty and medical bankruptcy each year, but economic justice advocates have long said the programs would be strengthened and remain fully solvent for as long as possible if the richest Americans contributed more to them—and on Thursday two Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to ensure they do.
The bicameral bill, the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, was reintroduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), with the aim of requiring people with yearly incomes of more than $400,000 to contribute a fairer share of their wealth to the two programs.
Currently the maximum amount of earnings for which American workers must pay Social Security taxes is just over $176,000.
The bill would lift the Social Security tax cap "to ensure that no matter the source of their income, high-income taxpayers would pay the same tax rate on their income exceeding that threshold," said the lawmakers in a press statement.
It would also increase the Medicare tax rate for income above $400,000 by 1.2% and include a provision ensuring owners of hedge funds and private equity firms can no longer avoid Medicare taxes.
Whitehouse and Boyle introduced the bill as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans work to slash Social Security—confirming Wall Street executive Frank Bisignano, who has backed billionaire Elon Musk's spending cuts at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to run the program this week.
"While Republicans are pushing a $7 trillion tax giveaway to the ultrarich, we're working to protect the benefits that millions of Americans have earned—and we won't let them be stolen to fund another billionaire windfall."
Republicans have also suggested Medicare could be slashed in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and have pushed to expand privatized Medicare Advantage plans.
"Working-class seniors pay into Social Security and Medicare their whole careers so they can enjoy a dignified retirement, but they end up paying a much larger share of their income in taxes than billionaires because the tax code is rigged in favor of the rich," said Whitehouse. "As the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans gear up to deliver budget-busting giveaways for their billionaire donors, I will continue pushing to make our tax code fair and protect these twin pillars of retirement security as far as the eye can see."
Actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Social Security Administration estimated that Whitehouse and Boyle's proposal would extend Social Security and Medicare solvency by at least 75 years.
Without new revenue, the trust funds that finance Medicare and Social Security are projected to be 100% solvent only through 2036 and 2033, respectively.
The legislation is endorsed by groups including Social Security Works, the National Council on Aging, and the Center for Medicare Advocacy.
"From my first day in Congress, I've pledged to protect the long-term stability of Social Security and Medicare—two bedrock promises our country made to seniors, workers, and people with disabilities," said Boyle. "Now, with [President] Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE-fueled billionaires openly attacking these programs, that fight is more urgent than ever."
"While Republicans are pushing a $7 trillion tax giveaway to the ultrarich," he said, "we're working to protect the benefits that millions of Americans have earned—and we won't let them be stolen to fund another billionaire windfall."
The plan "contravenes basic humanitarian principles," said a spokesperson for the United Nation's children's agency.
United Nations aid officials have rejected a U.S. and Israel-backed plan for aid delivery in Gaza that reportedly involves the use of a private foundation and U.S. military security contractors to deliver far less humanitarian assistance than the besieged enclave needs.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), warned Friday that the agency "will not participate."
"There is no reason to put in place a system that is at odds with the DNA of any principled humanitarian organization," Laerke told the BBC.
Since early March, Israel has blocked aid from entering Gaza, compounding widespread misery and hunger in the besieged enclave as Israel continues to mount a deadly military campaign there. U.N. officials have decried the fact that aid is close at hand but is not being allowed in.
Speaking in Jerusalem on Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said that the plan involves a private U.S.-backed foundation, which will distribute aid from a set number of distribution sites, according to CNN. Huckabee said the idea is to create a system that prevents Hamas from obtaining the aid.
The private entity, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, would administer those distribution sites using private U.S. military contractors and aid workers, according to CNN.
The plan reportedly entails only allowing 60 aid trucks a day, a sliver of what was allowed to enter the enclave during the two-month cease-fire that Israel ended in March. A document from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation states that there will initially be four distribution sites aimed at providing 1.2 million Palestinians in its first phase, or 60% of Gaza's population.
According to the The New YorkTimes, under the current aid distribution system, the U.N. says there are 400 distribution points.
Huckabee said that Israel would not be involved in delivering aid, but that Israeli forces would handle security around the distribution sites.
The Times of Israel, citing officials familiar with the plan, reported that the Israeli government and military have been involved in putting the plan together, even if the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is the entity that is slated to distribute the aid.
Reporting from The Washington Postpublished Monday, which cited unnamed Israeli officials and aid workers, framed the emerging plan as an Israeli initiative to take control of aid distribution in Gaza. The Post's reporting also stated that the distribution centers would be all be located in the south of Gaza.
The Post spoke with officials from a dozen international aid groups working in Gaza, who expressed concerns that restricting aid to a few locations would force more displacement and be discriminatory.
James Elder, spokesperson for the U.N.'s children's agency UNICEF, echoed this, according to the BBC, saying on Friday that the proposed plan would lead to more children suffering and that the decision to locate all the distribution centers in the south appeared designed to weaponize aid as "bait" to force Palestinians to be displaced once again.
The plan "contravenes basic humanitarian principles" and appears designed to "reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic," Elder said, according to U.N. News.