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international court of justice
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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UK, Other Nations Sanction Ben-Gvir and Smotrich for 'Inciting Violence' Against Palestinians in West Bank
"Today's measures focus on the West Bank, but of course this cannot be seen in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza," said the foreign ministers of five western countries.
Jun 10, 2025
The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom on Tuesday announced sanctions and "other measures" targeting two far-right Israeli cabinet ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for "inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank."
In a joint statement, the countries accused Ben-Gvir and Smotrich of being complicit in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
"Settler violence is incited by extremist rhetoric which calls for Palestinians to be driven from their homes, encourages violence and human rights abuses and fundamentally rejects the two-state solution. Settler violence has led to the deaths of Palestinian civilians and the displacement of whole communities," according to the statement. "Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights."
Within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, Ben-Gvir is the national security minister and Smotrich is finance minister.
The two are now subject to an asset freeze and travel ban, the U.K. government said.
Last year, the outlet Al Jazeera put the number of settlers, Israeli citizens who live on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, at over 700,000.
Also last year, the United Nation's International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that Israeli settlements "and the regime associated with them" were established and continue to be maintained in violation of international law.
A U.N. report from last month found that Israeli settler violence is on the rise and has reached its highest rate in at least 20 years.
The statement from the foreign ministers indicates the sanctions are applied to Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in a personal capacity and that the announced measures "do not deviate from our unwavering support for Israel's security."
"Today's measures focus on the West Bank, but of course this cannot be seen in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza. We continue to be appalled by the immense suffering of civilians, including the denial of essential aid," according to the statement. "We will continue to work with the Israeli government and a range of partners. We will strive to ensure an immediate cease-fire, the release now of the remaining hostages and for the unhindered flow of humanitarian aid including food."
The move comes after some escalation of pressure on Israel by the U.K. and some other western countries.
"The U.K. has finally sanctioned Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. Good. Now sanction the entire Israeli government and military officials. Genocide, war crimes, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, and land theft aren’t just the agenda of two extremists—they're official state policy," wrote Zarah Sultana, a lawmaker in Britain's Labour Party, on Bluesky on Tuesday.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the move by the western nations "unacceptable," according to multiple outlets.
Ben-Gvir posted a statement on X on Tuesday that said: "While the European colonial countries fantasize that we Jews are still their subjects, the streets of their famous cities are being taken over by radical Islam. But their campaign of appeasement for the Hamas terrorists will not save them. When they finally wake up, it will be too late!"
Smotrich also responded defiantly to news of the sanctions on Tuesday.
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'I Call it Genocide Because IT IS Genocide' Says UN Palestine Expert Francesca Albanese
"To end it, we must first be willing to see it."
Jun 03, 2025
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese pushed back Tuesday against Israel and its defenders, who for years have attempted to gaslight and malign the Italian legal scholar for tirelessly condemning what an increasing number of international experts—including many Israelis and diaspora Jews—agree is a genocide in Gaza.
"I call it genocide because IT IS a genocide," Albanese wrote on the social media site X on Tuesday, amplifying a video she recorded last week in which she said that "Israel is committing genocide in Gaza."
"It's not an opinion, it's a fact," the 48-year-old Georgetown University scholar asserted. "Top international experts, including Israelis, agree upon that."
Under Article II of the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide is defined as killing, "causing serious bodily or mental harm" to a group of people, "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," "imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group," or "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
Israel is currently facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa and supported by dozens of nations, either individually or via regional blocs. The ICJ has issued three provisional orders for Israel to take steps including avoiding genocidal acts and ending weaponized starvation in Gaza. Critics say Israel has violated all three orders.
The International Criminal Court has also issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza including extermination and forced starvation.
"In Gaza, Israel has killed nearly 60,000 people with bombs bullets, and drones, including 16,000 children," Albanese said in the video. "It has flattened homes, schools, churches, hospitals, water networks, farms, even cemeteries. The death toll from hunger, disease, untreated wounds, an deprivation could reach 300,000."
"Prisoners, including medics and journalists, have been tortured. Many have been raped, using dogs and sticks; some have died in Israeli prisons," she continued. "Forced displacement continues in the West Bank, and over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in 20 months, and 1 in 5 is a child."
"Beware of those who use Hamas' crimes or the fate of the hostages to justify this massacre," she said. "Civilians are never legitimate targets. Israel has masked everything with legal words: 'evacuations,' 'safe zones,' 'human shields'—it's fiction."
Israel and its leaders deny they are committing genocide and say those who make such allegations—including Jews—are antisemitic. Albanese has been a prominent target of such smears, in which the Biden and Trump administrations as well as members of U.S. Congress, both Democratic and Republican, have taken part while supporting tens of billions of dollars in U.S. armed aid for Israel.
Albanese has called the U.S. and other Western nations that support Israel an "axis of genocide."
"And what about us? We are failing the test of our humanity."
Gaza officials say Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockades have left at least 193,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, sickened, or starved— sometimes to death. Israeli forces are currently carrying out a plan by Netanyahu's far-right government to conquer, indefinitely occupy, ethnically cleanse, and possibly recolonize Gaza, which U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants to make into the "Riviera of the Middle East"—presumably devoid of Palestinians.
"And what about us?" asked Albanese in the video. "We are failing the test of our humanity. Too many media, governments, companies, universities, too many guilty consciences and dirty hands. This genocide bears our fingerprints. It's under our eyes. Denying it today means being ignorant, or complicit. Stopping it is the only way to remain human."
"Genocide is a process, not a single act," Albanese added. "A collective act. A criminal venture. To end it, we must first be willing to see it."
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