The US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, set up to distribute aid to Gaza as an alternative to the United Nations but which Palestinians said endangered the lives of civilians as they tried to get food, said Tuesday it would shutter operations.
The foundation had already closed distribution sites after a US-brokered ceasefire took effect six weeks ago in Gaza. It announced Monday that it was permanently shutting down, claiming it had fulfilled its mission. "We have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans," GHF director John Acree said in a statement.
The operations of the GHF were shrouded in secrecy during its short time in operation, and the group never revealed its sources of funding and said little about the armed contractors who operated the sites.
It said its goal was to deliver aid to Gaza without it being diverted by Hamas.
Palestinians, aid workers and health officials have said the system forced aid-seekers to risk their lives to reach the sites by passing Israeli troops who secured the locations. Soldiers often opened fire, killing hundreds, according to witnesses and videos posted to social media. The Israeli military says it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.
GHF said there was no violence in the aid sites themselves but acknowledged the potential dangers people faced when travelling to them on foot. However, contractors working at the sites, backed by video accounts, said the American security guards fired live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scrambled for food.
GHF shutters
Acree said that GHF would hand off its work to the US-led centre in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire, called the Civil-Military Coordination Centre.
"GHF has been in talks with CMCC and international organisations now for weeks about the way forward and it’s clear they will be adopting and expanding the model GHF piloted," he said.
Tommy Pigott, a deputy spokesperson for the US State Department, said on social platform X that GHF had "shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners".
GHF began operating in late May, nearly three months after Israel had halted food deliveries to Gaza, pushing the population toward famine.
Israel intended for the private contractor group to replace the UN food distribution system, claiming Hamas was diverting large amounts of aid. The UN denied the claims.
The UN had opposed the creation of GHF, saying the system gave Israel control over food distribution and could force the displacement of Palestinians. Throughout the war, the UN led a massive humanitarian effort with other aid groups, distributing food, medicine, fuel and other supplies at hundreds of centres around Gaza.
In the release, GHF said it had delivered over 3 million food boxes to Gaza, totalling 187 million meals.
Israel's military chief and defence minister in rare public clash
On Tuesday, Israel’s defence minister clashed publicly with the military’s chief of staff over the army’s latest probes of its failures in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militants that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had said earlier that he would order a re-examination of the military’s latest internal review into what happened October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed around 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people to Gaza. He also said he would be freezing new appointments in the army pending the conclusions of this new review. Israel’s government has long resisted the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 attack.
In response, military Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said in a sharply worded statement Tuesday that the defence minister’s move was "puzzling" and "not substantive". He said that freezing appointments would harm the military's "capabilities and its readiness for the upcoming challenges" and claimed he would continue to "hold posting discussions as planned, in accordance with his authority".
The army "is the only body in the country that has thoroughly investigated its own failures and taken responsibility for them", wrote Zamir. "If any further examination is required to complete the picture, it must take the form of an external, objective and independent commission" that will also probe "the interface between the military echelon and the political echelon".
Moments after Zamir put out the statement, Katz doubled down on his decision, releasing a statement saying he "respects" the military chief of staff, "who knows very well that he is subordinate to the prime minister, the defence minister and the government of Israel". He added he "does not intend to argue in the media" and reasserted his authority to decide on military appointments.
Following the military’s latest review, Zamir sanctioned 13 army officials who were top commanders on October 7, censuring some and forcing others into retirement.
The attack kick-started the war in Gaza, in which over 69,700 Palestinians have been killed and over 170,800 injured, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.
Israel says it kills wanted militant in West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said it killed a militant wanted in a May 2024 car ramming attack that killed two Israeli soldiers in the northern city of Nablus.
The army said that the suspect, identified as Ala Raouf Shetiyya, was armed and barricaded himself inside a building before he was shot dead.
Israel has launched a military offensive in the West Bank since the October 7 attacks in what it says is a crackdown against Palestinian militants. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced, and while many of the dead were militants, Palestinians and rights groups say scores of stone throwers and uninvolved civilians have been killed.
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