THE ‘GAZA Humanitarian Foundation’ (GHF), created by the United States and Israel to manage the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, said it will start operating this week despite the resignation of its Executive Director Jake Wood on Sunday.
GHF said it aims to deliver aid to a million Palestinians in the territory by the end of this week and plans to ‘scale rapidly to serve the full population in the weeks ahead.’
Last week, 11 leading Aid and Human Rights Organisations, including Christian Aid and War on Want, condemned the GHF as ‘a Dangerous, Politicised Sham’.
They wrote: ‘We, the undersigned humanitarian and human rights organisations, unequivocally reject the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a project led by politically connected Western security and military figures, coordinated in tandem with the Israeli government, and launched while the people of Gaza remain under total siege. It lacks any Palestinian involvement in its design or implementation.’
Israel has intentionally starved the population of Gaza for over two months and aid agencies warn of widespread famine and multiple deaths from starvation.
UNRWA and other aid agencies refuse to work with GHF warning that the conditions under which it will work, including requiring Palestinians to gather at centralised aid points, will put people at risk and undermine other aid efforts.
Wood announced his resignation on Sunday, citing concerns over the GHF’s independence, saying it could not adhere ‘to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.’
The GHF board said it was ‘disappointed’ by the resignation but remains committed to its plans, while a spokesman for the US State Department said it remains supportive.
The GHF, which claims it has been based in Geneva since February, emerged from ‘private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and business people with close ties to the Israeli government’, according to The New York Times.
The United Nations and major humanitarian organisations warn that the GHF is designed to undermine existing relief efforts, restrict food access to limited areas of Gaza and force civilians to walk long distances to access aid and cross Israeli military lines.
According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, 1.95 million people – 93 per cent of Gaza’s population – are facing acute levels of food insecurity.
Aid agencies have described the crisis as a man-made famine, and have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.
18 children killed in Gaza school massacre
THE Government Media Office in Gaza has issued a statement condemning the ‘brutal massacre’ at the school-turned-shelter in Gaza City yesterday morning, which killed more than 30 people.
In a statement, it said 18 children were among those killed in the attack, calling it ‘a direct extension of the crime of ethnic cleansing and genocide’ that the Israeli army has been committing against Palestinians for nearly 600 days.
The office said Israel has been ‘deliberately and systematically’ targeting shelters and centres for displaced people ‘in a flagrant violation of all international and humanitarian laws, and in a blatant attempt to inflict the largest possible number of civilian casualties.’
It added that these attacks take place amid the collapse of the healthcare system and the destruction of hospitals due to Israel’s war.
‘Medical staff are under tremendous pressure, face a severe shortage of medical supplies, the closure of crossings to the wounded and sick, and the prevention of the entry of fuel, food, medicine, and treatment, exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip,’ the office said.
Israel has in effect dismantled Gaza’s healthcare system, according to Aseel Baidoun, deputy director of advocacy and campaigns at UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians.
‘Ninety per cent of the 531 healthcare services points across Gaza have become completely nonfunctional, and we have more than 1,400 health workers killed,’ she said.
‘When I get in touch with doctors inside Gaza, they have no energy because they are starving and overwhelmed. Every hospital has been targeted in Gaza. Israel made sure that healthcare workers are detained or killed.’
Baidoun pointed to the bombing last Friday of the home of two Gaza doctors, which killed nine of their 10 children.
‘These are not isolated incidents. They violate international humanitarian law, and they are a part of the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system, which was fragile even before October 2023,’ Baidoun said.
Gaza’s healthcare system is on the brink of collapse as hospitals and medical facilities continue to come under Israeli fire.
In the north, the Indonesian, Kamal Adwan, al-Shifa, al-Ahli and al-Awda hospitals have been repeatedly targeted. In central Gaza, Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah has also been hit. In southern Gaza, the Nasser Medical Complex and the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis have also come under attack. The World Health Organization says nearly 700 attacks have been carried out on healthcare facilities since the war started. More than 90 per cent of Gaza’s hospitals have been damaged or destroyed.
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