Controversial Gaza aid group vows to keep operating despite mass killings of Palestinians

RTÉ News​

2 days ago

The Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is less than six weeks old, but it has already mired in controversy, with near daily mass killings of hungry Palestinians seeking food from its aid hubs.
Israeli and US officials say the new system, operated by American contractors, was set up to stop aid falling into the hands of Hamas militants and have called on the UN and other agencies to cooperate.
But the UN denies widespread diversion of aid from its long-established distribution networks and describes the foundation as a "death trap" that has "weaponised aid" for starving Gazans.
Since the GHF began operating on 27 May, after a 78-day Israeli total blockade on food, water and medicine into Gaza, international organisations estimate more than 600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 wounded near four GHF-operated aid distribution sites.
On Tuesday, 170 charities and humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International, called for the GHF to be shut down, citing "routine" shootings and "repeated massacres in blatant disregard for international humanitarian law".
The next day, Swiss authorities moved to close the Geneva office of the foundation.
But Reverend Johnnie Moore, the American evangelical Christian pastor who is chair of the GHF, vowed that the sites would continue operating and indicated that other countries, including European nations, may soon pledge their support publicly.
"There are also European countries that have been involved largely behind the scenes – hopefully that will change in the future," Mr Moore told the BBC.
So far, the US State Department has announced €26m in funding.
But the initial funding came from "two anonymous European countries," Mr Moore said.
Shrouded in the fog of war, the GHF is now at the heart of a battle of narratives where Israeli authorities blame Hamas militants for the shooting of starving civilians and of running a propaganda campaign against the Israeli military.
But eyewitnesses, international NGOs and local rescuers say IDF troops have deployed tanks, machine guns and mortar fire against unarmed men, women and children.
This week, GHF whistleblowers came forward to reveal that US contractors used live bullets and stun grenades against Palestinians queuing for aid. The GHF dismissed the reports as false.
Israel has banned international media organisations from reporting in Gaza.
Last week, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz published testimony of unnamed IDF soldiers who said they had been given orders to shoot at crowds of Palestinians queuing for aid, despite the civilians posing no threat.
One soldier described the approach routes to a GHF distribution site as a "killing field".
There are no crowd control measures or tear gas, the soldier told the newspaper, and troops dubbed the operation "Salted fish," the Israeli version of the children's game of "red light, green light" – an apparent reference to the Korean television programme Squid Game.
The IDF has admitted to firing "warning shots" on several occasions but denied accounts of deliberate shootings.
Following the Ha'aretz exposé, the Israeli military ordered an internal investigation.
But the report was denounced by the Israeli government.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz accused the paper of publishing a "blood libel".
"These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world," they said in a joint statement.
However, the accounts given by the Israeli soldiers and GHF whistleblowers appear to corroborate testimony gathered by Budour Hassan, researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories at Amnesty International.
Eyewitnesses described arrows painted onto the asphalt ground, indicating the direction for people to walk as they approach the aid point, she told RTÉ News.
"We have tens of thousands of people [in these lines]," Ms Hassan said, "and the moment people stray from the line designated for them to pass through, the shooting starts".
People also described low-hovering drones and quadcopters that fire bullets into the crowds.
One case she documented was of a 17-year-old boy who went to look for his father who had previously gone missing near a GHF site.
"The boy was shot in the leg while looking for his father," she said.
Three eyewitnesses in separate interviews described hearing a voice transmitted in Arabic from a quadcopter, telling the crowds there was no aid available that day and to return home, followed by laughter, Ms Hassan said.
The aid hubs usually operate either very late at night or very early in the morning, she said.
"We're talking about from 12am to 2am - sometimes at 5am," she said and "[people] have to walk for more than four or five hours on foot, because there's no fuel, no transportation and roads are destroyed".
Eyewitnesses described scenes of chaos when the gates of the aid distribution sites opened as aid is accessed on a first-come, first-served basis, she said.
"Sometimes it's very dark at night, you can barely see what's next to you and they start chasing whatever scraps they can get," she said,"and then they start shooting".
"We have been talking to several families whose loved ones have been missing for over a month, since attempting to collect food from the GHF, and to this day, they have no idea where they are," she said.
"They never came back."
Had the GHF proved successful in delivering aid to the Palestinians humanely, humanitarian organisations would have been the first to congratulate them, Ms Hassan told RTÉ News.
This organisation has a clear role, she said, and that is to "do the dirty work, unfortunately, of the Israeli military".
But the US acting representative to the United Nations, John Kelley, told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation "has committed to delivering aid consistent with humanitarian principles".
"And, contrary to what Hamas wants the world to believe, the GHF continues to provide vital food aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, distributing over 50 million meals as of June 29," he told the Security Council.
The head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation also accused the United Nations and other international aid organisations of "sabotage" and of spreading "lies that originate in Hamas".
Reverend Johnnie Moore took over GHF after its previous boss Jake Wood resigned, citing concerns over the plan's adherence to "humanitarian principles".
"Respectable — I don't even call them respectable anymore — elite organisations that we would assume [have] good intent have just attacked us again and again," Mr Moore told a podcast produced by the Israel-based Misgav Institute for National Security.
"The whole time, we're like 'cooperate with us … teach us, let's find ways of solving problems together,'" to no avail," he said.
Mr Moore said he would have liked to collaborate with the World Food Programme and other UN bodies but that the UN had "been trying to sabotage us from the very beginning".
Asked by RTÉ News for a response to the accusation of sabotage, Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General said "no - we've never told people not to go to their sites".
"Who are we that are fed to say to people who are hungry, don't do this?" he said.
"All we're asking is for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to operate within internationally accepted norms," Mr Dujarric told RTÉ News.
The UN does not have and is not asking for a monopoly on humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza, he said.
"There is enough work for everyone," Mr Dujarric said.
"All that we ask is that people operate with the minimum standards, that are globally accepted on humanitarian aid: impartiality, independence, [and] operate in a way that doesn't put the recipients at risk of being shot at," he added.