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gaza humanitarian foundation
Rights Group Warns of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's Complicity in Israeli 'War Crimes'
The Center for Constitutional Rights accused GHF of "directly contributing to or otherwise furthering Israel's commission of forcible transfer and other atrocity crimes."
Jun 12, 2025
As Israeli occupation forces continued to massacre desperate aid-seekers in Gaza this week, human rights defenders accused the U.S.-backed organization Israel is allowing to distribute limited aid in the embattled strip of being a "death trap" and giving cover to Israel's program of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.
Local and international media reported Thursday that at least 13 Palestinians were killed and upward of 200 others were wounded when Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops opened fire on civilians waiting for humanitarian aid near the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza.
Medical sources also said Israeli shelling killed 12 Palestinians and injured dozens more gathered at an aid distribution center near the southern city of Rafah, while IDF troops shot dead five other people waiting for aid northwest of Gaza City.
Thursday's massacres followed similar IDF attacks on civilians seeking aid that have killed or wounded hundreds of Palestinians since the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began allowing a trickle of humanitarian relief to enter Gaza amid a "complete siege" that has fueled mass starvation among the strip's more than 2 million people, almost all of whom have been forcibly displaced, often multiple times.
Many hundreds of Palestinians, mostly children and elders, have recently died from malnutrition and lack of medical care in Gaza.
This, as Israeli forces continued Operation Gideon's Chariots, which aims to conquer and indefinitely occupy all of Gaza and ethnically cleanse much of its population, possibly to make way for Israeli resettlement as advocated by many right-wing Israelis.
As the death toll among Palestinian aid-seekers mounts, critics have taken aim at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the Delaware-based nonprofit tasked with distributing aid in the coastal enclave. Opponents have called GHF a "death trap" and a "ruse to weaponize aid."
This week, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) notified GHF "of its potential legal liability for complicity in Israel's war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Palestinians."
CCR—which unsuccessfully sued U.S. President Joe Biden and two of his top officials for alleged genocide complicity in Gaza—said in a letter to GHF executive chairman Johnnie Moore that "there is a reasonable basis to believe that your operations, planned and undertaken in close coordination with Israel, are directly contributing to or otherwise furthering Israel's commission of forcible transfer and other atrocity crimes in the occupied Gaza Strip."
"This militarized system of food distribution funneled through three distribution hubs in Rafah and one near Deir el-Balah requires malnourished Palestinians to travel great distances and often relocate within Gaza to access food aid under a regime overseen by Israeli forces and U.S. private military contractors," the letter continues.
"In the 10 days since GHF began its stop-and-go operations, reports range from at least 95 to as many as 130 Palestinians having
been killed and hundreds wounded while seeking food at GHF sites," CCR added. "We urge you to immediately cease and desist such operations and actions in Gaza. Failing to do so could result in the initiation of civil litigation or criminal prosecution in domestic courts in different countries, including under the principle of universal jurisdiction, or could subject you to the jurisdiction of international bodies."
Those bodies include the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel—and the International Criminal Court, also based in the Dutch city, which last year issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder and forced starvation.
On Thursday, Zeteopublished an interview with an anonymous former private U.S. security contractor who was hired to facilitate GHF aid distribution who said: "I thought I was signing up for an aid mission. But what I've witnessed in Gaza is horrific."
"You have guys with hardly any knowledge of the culture, no deployment experience, and are not necessarily qualified to be using the weapons they had in charge of security at aid sites in a place where we know millions are desperate for aid," he continued. "What could go wrong?"
According to the former contractor:
One episode sticks with me. We were monitoring an empty site all day; sometime after dark, dozens of flatbed trucks finally brought aid. The Israeli military soon radioed in that 200 to 300 civilians a couple of kilometers (less than two miles) north were approaching. We then observed an Israeli drone go out there.
Shortly thereafter, that area started getting lit up with artillery. The generous interpretation? Maybe the Israelis were firing between our position and the people in order to keep them from moving forward. I don't think that's the case. After all, tanks fire all day long near these aid sites. Snipers fire from what used to be a hospital. Bombs and bullets fly all day long in one direction—toward Palestinians. It's very clear that the Israeli military will take any opportunity available to fire.
Last month, Jake Wood, a former U.S. marine and co-founder of the disaster relief group Team Rubicon, resigned as executive director of GHF. Wood cited "the lack of independence from Israel and the likelihood that the plan would result in forced displacement," according to CCR.
Earlier this month, Christoph Schweizer, CEO of Boston Consulting Group—which played a key role in creating GHF—apologized for and ended BCG's participation in the endeavor.
"I deeply regret that in this situation, we fell short—of our own standards and of the trust that you, our clients and our broader communities place in BCG," he wrote. "I am sorry for how deeply disappointing this has been."
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Israeli Attacks Kill Dozens at Aid Sites as Gaza Death Toll Surpasses 55,000
One Palestinian man said he and his brother, who was killed, had no choice but to try to access aid at privatized distribution points, even though they knew it was dangerous to approach them.
Jun 11, 2025
With chaos and violence persisting "by design" at aid sites set up by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed organization in Gaza, the death toll at the distribution points rose Wednesday, as did the overall number of deaths in the enclave since Israel began bombarding the civilian population 20 months ago.
At least 120 Palestinians were killed in the last 24 hours across the enclave, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 55,104. Gaza's Health Ministry added that at least 474 people have been injured over the past day.
The latest deaths include at least 57 people who were seeking humanitarian aid, which Israel is allowing to be accessed only at distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—staffed by U.S. security contractors and guarded by Israeli forces. More than 363 people were also injured at aid sites by Israeli forces since Wednesday morning.
In total, 224 people have been killed at GHF's distribution centers since they began operating over the objections of the United Nations, aid groups that have long worked in Gaza, and an executive who had been leading the initiative but resigned late last month, saying GHF's aid plan violated the "humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence."
Issam Wahdan, a Palestinian man whose brother was killed when he tried to retrieve aid near the Netzarim Corridor this week, toldAl Jazeera that he and his brother had attempted to obtain one of GHF's food boxes several times, "but we never got lucky."
"So, my brother and I decided to go early to the distribution center," Wahdan told Al Jazeera. "When we arrived, we were surprised to see quadcopters shooting at us. We didn't know what to do, we had never experienced this before. The quadcopter threw a bomb at us. There were many wounded and martyred people, including my brother, who was wounded yesterday and died today. One of our best friends was martyred on the spot."
Wahdan suggested he and his brother saw the GHF distribution hubs as dangerous, but had to try to retrieve aid to feed their families.
"We need humanitarian aid so we have to go to the center. My brother was married and had two boys and one daughter. His youngest is 18 months old," he said. "His children are hungry and that forced him to go there to get some aid. When your children are hungry, you need to do anything to provide them with food."
Israel has acknowledged firing "warning shots" to control large crowds of starving Palestinians at GHF sites, and have claimed that the Israel Defense Forces have shot only at "suspects" who approached the troops. Israel and its allies have also repeatedly claimed the IDF has been targeting Hamas in Gaza, even amid mounting evidence that they have deliberately killed civilians.
Palestinians have been forced to walk an average of 9.3 miles to retrieve boxes that Chris Newton, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said contain an amount of sustenance that is "closer to the ration given in a starvation experiment run in the 1940s in the U.S. than it is to Israel's own previous 2008 red line for the minimum calories needed to avoid malnutrition in Gaza."
"The violence, the chaos, and the complete inadequacy of the types and volume of aid being given out are not so much mistakes of the system, but really by design," Newton told Al Jazeera. "This is not the system you would design if your goal was to end mass starvation in the Gaza Strip."
The GHF sites were established more than 80 days after Israel imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid in March, just before it broke a temporary cease-fire. In May, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification released a report warning that the siege had placed the entirety of the Gaza Strip in "Phase 4," with the population suffering from "very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality."
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday posted on social media the story of a 5-year-old boy named Osama, who was "once a healthy child in Gaza."
"He now weighs only 5 kilograms, dangerously below the healthy weight for his age. Osama is being treated at Nasser Hospital but his full recovery depends on sufficient nutrition and follow-up care—both of which are at risk," said UNICEF. "The recovery of children like Osama is possible only with a long-lasting cease-fire and aid at scale being allowed into Gaza."
Gaza's Government Media Office said Wednesday that Israel is "deliberately creating chaos in the Gaza Strip by perpetuating a policy of starvation and deliberately targeting and killing starving people seeking food."
"This has been achieved," said the office, "through direct, often intentional, and sometimes random, killings by quadcopters, helicopters, or tanks, targeting young men, elderly people, and children who rushed to obtain whatever food aid was available to feed their children and families."
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At Least 14 More Palestinians Killed at Aid Points as Israel Detains Humanitarian Volunteers
"The almost daily massacres of starving Palestinian families desperately seeking food denied to them by the Israeli-imposed campaign of intentional starvation are crimes against humanity," said one advocate.
Jun 09, 2025
As activists who had been headed for Gaza with humanitarian aid remained in Israeli custody Monday, Palestinian rights advocates condemned reports that the death toll at aid distribution points set up by a private Israel-backed company continued to grow.
The Associated Pressreported that "Israeli forces and allied local gunmen" were behind gunfire that killed at least 14 Palestinians who were taken to local hospitals on Monday, and roughly 100 people were injured.
The people killed were the latest among a total of at least 127 Palestinians who have been killed as they've approached distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private group staffed by U.S. defense contractors and supported by the Israeli and U.S. governments—but rejected by the United Nations and groups that have long provided aid in Gaza, who say the GHF is not a neutral party and is endangering Palestinians by forcing them to walk several miles through their war-torn enclave to retrieve food boxes weighing 44 pounds each.
At Al Jazeera, Hind Khoudary reported that as Palestinians have approached the aid points in recent days, "the Israeli army starts opening fire, Israeli quadcopters hover above their heads, and Israeli tanks proceed to bear down on the aid seekers."
Among the people killed at a distribution point in Rafah near al-Mawasi was "a woman named Hanan who was solely responsible for feeding her kids and family," reported Khoudary.
"These distribution sites are in the middle of nowhere, where Israeli bulldozers destroyed residential homes," Khoudary added. "It's totally chaotic. Israeli forces have been firing live ammunition as well as tear gas canisters to disperse starving Palestinians."
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have previously admitted to opening fire on Palestinians at GHF sites, but have claimed "shots were directed near individual suspects who advanced toward the troops."
The APreported that men from a local militia called the Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, opened fire at a distribution site in Khan Younis after the men tried to organize the crowd and people "pushed forward."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that his government has armed Abu Shabab's militia as part of an effort to undermine Hamas. Abu Shabab denied the claim. Aid workers have said the Popular Forces have long looted trucks carrying humanitarian relief—something Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of doing as it has entirely cut off aid to Gaza since March.
An eyewitness named Hussein Shamimi told the AP that his 14-year-old cousin was killed in the attack on Monday.
"There was an ambush," said Shamimi, "the Israelis from one side and Abu Shabab from another."
At least four people were shot in the neck, another witness told the outlet.
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations in the U.S., called for an "immediate end" to the U.S. government's "complicity" in Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians since October 2023, and in the attacks on people at GHF aid points.
"The almost daily massacres of starving Palestinian families desperately seeking food denied to them by the Israeli-imposed campaign of intentional starvation are crimes against humanity carried out with the complicity of our own government," said Awad. "Food and other humanitarian supplies must enter Gaza unimpeded, without Israel being allowed to use starvation as a weapon of war and a tool for ethnic cleansing."
Also in Khan Younis on Monday, a Palestinian child became the latest to die of malnutrition at the Children's and Maternity Hospital.
At least 58 children in Gaza have died of malnutrition since Israel began its total blockade of aid in early March.
Meanwhile, organizers with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition reported Monday they had been unable to contact 12 international activists and volunteers who were aboard the Madleen, bound for Gaza, for 19 hours.
The activists, including Swedish climate leader Greta Thunberg, had been sailing to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid.
"These citizens were sailing peacefully under international law, in international waters, and Israel went and forcibly abducted them," Huwaida Arraf toldAl Jazeera. "This was done, as Israel puts it, to 'maintain a maritime closure of Gaza'—which it has no authority to do."
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