In the midst of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, the name of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and even Hamas, has emerged as one of the main causes behind the monster of famine ravaging stricken Gaza.
Reports by Human Rights Watch, the Associated Press, and the BBC have accused Hamas of monopolizing the distribution of food and medical aid. It has directed some of the aid to its loyalists or sold it on the black market instead of delivering it to the poorest groups. Worse still, human rights organizations have accused the movement of imposing taxes on basic goods and aid, even fuel coming from Egypt, which has increased prices and food shortages, compounding the tragedy of the stricken citizens.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which ostensibly appeared as a humanitarian project, sought to present itself as a more efficient alternative to UN-led international relief organizations. However, it sparked widespread controversy over the project's objectives and mechanisms after it began operating last May with the participation of a group of American and Israeli mercenaries under the guise of providing relief to the residents of the Gaza Strip. However, what happened on the ground was completely at odds with the stated message, as more than 600 Palestinians were martyred while trying to reach aid distribution points.
Further complicating matters is the role of the American Boston Consulting Group, which helped establish the foundation and is accused of devising the Aurora (Northern Lights) plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza. This plan has become the subject of widespread criticism from international relief organizations and UN officials, amid accusations of politicizing and militarizing aid, turning it into a tool for genocide rather than a means of survival.
With support from Washington and Tel Aviv, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was established last February as a US-based nonprofit organization based in Delaware. It includes former security and intelligence figures and military contractors, a combination that has raised questions about the true nature of its humanitarian work.
In a scene more reminiscent of a war zone than a relief site, a report by the American website Left Voice revealed that the organization hired security firms such as Safe Rights Solutions and UG Solutions, which are run by former American soldiers, one of whom once wrote about his desire to take revenge on the people of the Middle East. These companies recruited mercenaries who were paid more than a thousand dollars a day.
What is striking about this shift is not only the use of food as a weapon in the Gaza war, but also the recruitment of those supposed to be aid workers as armed mercenaries, led by American contractors who came to Gaza not to feed the hungry, but to ensure the management of hunger according to military concepts formulated by Israeli officers and former security advisors in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's field team documented, based on the testimony of more than 12 eyewitnesses, the presence of foreign mercenaries within the relief system, who steal aid and kill starving Palestinian civilians near food distribution centers, in addition to wreaking havoc and contributing to the systematic destruction of basic services and livelihoods in the Gaza Strip.
On the other hand, distribution centers were shifted to heavily guarded areas, near Israeli military sites. These points were excluded from the northern part of the besieged Gaza Strip, fueling accusations that aid was being used as leverage to forcibly transfer Palestinians to the south. On the first day of distribution, a massacre occurred in Rafah, and the organization's executive director, Jake Wood, and operations director, David Burke, subsequently resigned due to the project's inconsistency with basic humanitarian principles.
In a remarkable development that illustrates the significance of the alleged humanitarian aid in Gaza, a former security contractor who worked as part of the guard team at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites revealed to the BBC that his colleagues repeatedly opened fire on hungry Palestinian civilians who posed no threat. He said the shooting was carried out using heavy machine guns, including one incident in which a guard from a watchtower opened fire on a group of women, children, and the elderly simply because they failed to leave the area quickly enough. This coincided with the dismantling of international relief organizations such as the World Food Programme and World Central Kitchen, through restrictions on their operations, blocking supplies, threatening workers, and targeting them militarily. This prompted residents to rush toward three restricted distribution points, which have become death traps. What is happening in Gaza is not merely a failure of relief, but rather the deliberate use of aid as a political weapon by both Gaza and Israel. It is a tool of war that commits crimes under the guise of mercy, burying victims in bags of flour and other materials, mixing geopolitical interests with humanitarian needs amid a clear absence of justice.
