 "Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, as the Israel-Gaza conflict continues, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 4, 2024. File image/Reuters")
As many as 15 rights groups have warned the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that they might face legal challenges over international law violations and have called on it and other private organisations to cease their operations in the region.
In a letter addressed to GHF and the affiliated Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, the rights groups wrote that the “private contractors” working to feed Gazans in collaboration with the Israeli government risk “aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide”.
GHF has been associated with the deaths of several Palestinians who have been shot dead in the past couple of weeks as they rushed to aid distribution centres run by the group. The group replaced UN-run relief operations in Gaza after they were banned from the region.
“GHF’s militarized model, coupled with its close collaboration with Israeli authorities, undermines the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence," the letter added.
Last week, US Senator Elizabeth Warren raised concerns over the Trump administration’s proposal to redirect $500 million from USAID, an agency that has already seen significant cuts under the administration, to the Global Health Foundation (GHF), which is registered in both the United States and Switzerland.
“The questions surrounding GHF – its funding sources and connection to the Trump Administration, its use of private contractors, its ability to serve and be seen as a neutral entity, its abandonment by its founders, and its basic competence in providing aid – must be answered before the State Department commits any funding to the organization,” Warren wrote.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsOn Tuesday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed 21 people waiting for aid near a distribution site in the centre of the Palestinian territory.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 21 people were killed and around 150 wounded “as a result of the Israeli occupation forces’ targeting of gatherings of citizens waiting for aid… in the central Gaza Strip with bullets and tank shells” in the early hours of Tuesday.
With inputs from agencies