GHF to begin aid deliveries in Gaza today
The embattled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has issued a statement expressing disappointment at the sudden resignation of its executive director, and announcing plans to begin distributing aid in Gaza today.
“We will not be deterred,” it said.
“Our trucks are loaded and ready to go. Beginning Monday, May 26, GHF will begin direct aid delivery in Gaza, reaching over one million Palestinians by the end of the week. We plan to scale rapidly to serve the full population in the weeks ahead,” it added.
As we’ve been reporting, Wood resigned, citing the GHF’s lack of independence.
Why did the GHF’s executive director resign?
We’ve been speaking to Robert Patman, a professor of international relations at the University of Otago, about the latest setback for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. He says Wood resigned because of a lack of support from key groups.
“Jake Wood has a background in humanitarian assistance, but dealing with natural disasters, and I think he realised that he wasn’t getting support from the organisations that he needed in order to make this US-Israeli initiative an effective, independent humanitarian organisation,” Patman said from New Zealand.
“It’s no secret that major aid donors had not been convinced by this proposal, which is essentially a start-up. And secondly, the UN, and particularly UNRWA, have been very cool in their response and have indicated they won’t cooperate,” he said.
Patman also noted that many aid groups have pointed out that there’s “no need for a new humanitarian organisation”, and that what’s needed is an end to the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
GHF lacks ‘international legitimacy’
More from Patman, the professor at the University of Otago. He told Al Jazeera that it is striking that the GHF’s executive director cited the organisation’s failure to adhere to humanitarian principles in his resignation letter.
“I think this initiative lacks international legitimacy in the eyes of some of the key stakeholders,” Patman said. “The Israeli government makes no secret of the fact that it wants control of Gaza, and the Trump administration has already floated a proposal in the past which involved the displacement of the Palestinian population from Gaza,” the scholar said.
“So, in the eyes of much of the international community, the two parties who have contributed to the current situation now wish to take over the operation of humanitarian aid – when they have particular political goals in mind. And that does fuel suspicion and concern that this wouldn’t be a disinterested, impartial humanitarian operation,” he said.
“It’s not the best time to have a start-up when you actually have tried and trusted organisations which simply are not being given the tools to do the job,” Patman added.
GHF another attempt to ‘use food as weapon’ during war: Gaza ministry
Gaza’s Interior Ministry says it is following with deep concern the developments around the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been propped up by the US and Israel to take over aid distribution in the territory.
It said in a statement that the circumvention of international aid organisations is “intended to replace order with chaos, adopt a policy of engineering the starvation of Palestinian civilians, and use food as a weapon in times of war”.
By controlling aid through GHF, which saw its director resign today due to a lack of independence, Israel “seeks to achieve its malicious goals of implementing displacement plans, in addition to ensnaring and blackmailing citizens for security purposes”, it added.
The ministry warned that GHF would make Palestinians walk long distances to several limited militarised distribution points, meaning it is “part of the occupation’s policies to redistribute the population within the Gaza Strip” and fulfil its displacement plan for Gaza.
