Secretive, militarised, chaotic: anger over failing aid mission for starving Gazans

Respected humanitarian figures who GHF claimed were part of the organisation have distanced themselves. Nate Mook, former chief executive of Wood Central Kitchen, has said he is not involved, and David Beasley, former head of the World Food Programme, has refused to publicly confirm the claim he is on board.

Other names attached to GHF have no links to the aid sector, including a vice-president of Mastercard, a head of a private equity firm, and a former senior member of the US military.

GHF’s Swiss office ceased operations last week amid demands from a Geneva-based nonprofit that regulators investigate whether the organisation had breached domestic and international humanitarian law by employing private security contractors and militarising aid distribution.

This was not the vision laid out by US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, several weeks ago. “One of President Trump’s most urgent concerns is getting aid into Gaza,” he told reporters gathered in front of the US embassy, outlining the new plan.

Any critics who had concerns about the project should put aside their fears and get involved, Huckabee added. “I will be the first to admit it will not be perfect, especially in the early days. It’s a logistical challenge to make it work and to make it work well,” he said. “The greatest danger is doing nothing while people are starving.”

Experienced humanitarians sought to distance themselves from the project long before its inception. Amed Khan, a philanthropist who has organised relief in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Gaza, said he first began to hear about the initiative six months ago.

“Any time I heard more information I would immediately tell people that this is insane,” he said. “No one who has ever delivered food in a conflict zone anywhere on the planet would think it was a good idea to militarise it.”

He also had low confidence in the guards hired by Safe Reach Solutions, whom he said had been paid to stand around doing little in Gaza during a ceasefire earlier this year.

Israeli authorities have long sought to disparage the UN as lacking independence, while accusing Hamas of siphoning aid, a claim rebutted by humanitarians as well as the UN. US officials and Benjamin Netanyahu hailed GHF’s distribution system, with the Israeli prime minister saying his government “worked out a plan with our American friends to have controlled distribution sites”, promising more of the same.

Jonathan Whittall, who heads the UN’s office for coordination of humanitarian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, said the claim that Hamas is stealing aid didn’t “hold up to scrutiny”, and that there was no evidence that aid was diverted.

“The US-backed entity that has been created to deliver on this plan institutionalises Israel’s restrictions on aid delivery from the outset,” said Whittall.

Less than a day after Jake Wood’s resignation, criticism of the project’s funding rose within Israel. Addressing the Israeli parliament, opposition politician Yair Lapid asked whether Netanyahu’s government was covertly bankrolling both GHF and Safe Reach Solutions so as to finance aid into Gaza, a claim later denied by the prime minister’s office.

“Jake Wood understood that he was being played. The big question is whether we are not being played too. If this money is Israeli, if it comes from the state treasury, the state of Israel should not and cannot hide it,” said Lapid.

Rightwing firebrand Avigdor Lieberman, who has held a variety of ministerial posts including deputy prime minister and defence minister, claimed in a social media post that “the money for humanitarian aid comes from the Mossad and the ministry of defence. Hundreds of millions of dollars at the expense of Israeli citizens.”

GHF did not respond to questions about its funding, but instead referred to “a coordinated effort to disseminate misinformation”.

Sean Carroll, who heads an aid organisation, American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera), which has distributed aid in Gaza for years, denied Israel’s claims about Hamas diverting relief. The reported rise in looting could be easily solved by simply allowing more aid in, he added.

He was aghast at GHF’s attempts to deliver food. “Those scenes of people in fenced-in areas, alongside armed guards with their faces covered: that’s not a picture of humanity, it’s the opposite – depravity, degradation, indignity and potentially real violence and harm including lethal harm,” he said.

Carroll tried to caution those involved in GHF before the initiative launched, including sending a voice note to now acting head John Acree – formerly of USAid – warning him about the risk of weapons anywhere near aid. Anera had distributed 66 million meals, he said, and had not spent a penny on security until things got increasingly desperate and they had to hire a few guards for their warehouses.

“That’s how it’s done, man, you do it with local communities,” he told Acree in a gentle, patient, if exhausted tone. “We don’t ride around in armoured cars, we don’t have armoured vests, we have no weapons. That’s how it’s done.”

Humanitarian workers also fear that the GHF model, if deemed to be successful, could lead to the aid industry becoming privatised and unaccountable.

GHF’s plan to militarise aid from a tiny cluster of distribution points has drawn fierce criticism from UN officials who have refused to participate and raised the alarm about the initiative. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told the security council last week that it “makes starvation a bargaining chip”.

“For anyone still pretending to be in any doubt, the Israeli-designed distribution modality is not the answer,” he said. “It is a cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement ... If any of that still matters, have no part in it.”

Humanitarians fear the plan is enmeshed with Israel’s renewed operation in Gaza, with at least 70% under military evacuation orders or labelled no-go zones. “For us, this is part of this broader displacement plan, where Gaza is being depopulated as we speak,” said Bushra Khalidi from Oxfam, labelling it “an annihilation campaign”.

“Nearly all remaining areas where civilians have been relocated make up just 20% of the territory, where there is no clean water, sanitation or basic infrastructure. This looks like the systematic clearing of Gaza through military force, forcing the population into small areas of internment,” she said. “Officials have said they plan to take control of Gaza and establish these logistical hubs as they call it. But just because you say something is humanitarian, it doesn’t make it so.”