The controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) says it is winding down its aid operations in the Palestinian territory.
Hundreds of Palestinians were killed while seeking food amid chaotic scenes near GHF’s sites, mostly by Israeli fire, said the United Nations’ human rights office. Israel said its troops had fired warning shots.
GHF director John Acree said on Monday: “This mission was designed to show that humanitarian aid can be delivered efficiently, safely, and transparently even in the most challenging conflict zones.”
He said a US-led multinational co-ordination centre in Israel overseeing US president Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war would be “adopting and expanding the model” that the GHF had piloted.
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However, the GHF is accused of operating a chaotic operation which ended up inflicting suffering on thousands of Palestinians approaching and accessing its sites in Israeli military zones.
Israeli soldiers and US contractors were filmed shooting unarmed Palestinians at or near GHF sites, said the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Gaza officials and witnesses.
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The UN’s human rights office said it recorded the killing of more than 800 Palestinians seeking food in the vicinity of GHF sites between May and July this year, while more than 500 people were killed near the routes of UN and other aid convoys, it said. Most of them were killed by the Israeli military, said the office.
The Israeli military has said its troops fired warning shots at people who approached them in a “threatening” manner.
The GHF has said there were no shootings at the aid sites and accused the UN of using “false and misleading” statistics from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
International and United Nations aid organisations refused to work with the GHF arguing it had “weaponised” aid and did not operate on the basis of international humanitarian principles of “humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”
GHF started supplying aid in Gaza nearly three months after Israel imposed a blockade on all goods entering the war-shattered enclave. A famine was later declared in parts of Gaza.
Last August, 28 UN experts called the GHF an “utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law.”
Nevertheless, the GHF only closed its distribution sites after the US-brokered ceasefire took effect in Gaza last month.
A full flow of aid was meant to resume after the ceasefire took hold last October. However, it was reported by the Hamas media office on Monday that 200 aid trucks per day – one-third of the permitted 600 under the ceasefire deal- were being allowed into Gaza.
