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SvennoJ on 26 May 2025
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Widely condemned new aid system in Gaza starts operations

A new aid distribution network involving private military contractors in Gaza says it has opened its first distribution hubs.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is taking over the handling of humanitarian relief despite objections from United Nations. The desperately needed supplies started flowing on a day that saw Israeli strikes kill at least 80 people in Gaza.

The group said truckloads of food – it did not say how many – had been delivered to its hubs, and distribution to Palestinians has begun.

“More trucks with aid will be delivered tomorrow with the flow of aid increasing each day,” it said in a statement.

The UN and aid groups that have long supplied aid to Gaza have pushed back against the new system, which is backed by Israel and the United States. They assert that Israel is trying to use food as a weapon and say a new system won’t be effective.


Only UNRWA capable of delivering aid to Gaza: Ex-spokesman

Chris Gunness, a former spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), says the usage of the aid distribution model by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is meant “to justify the weaponisation of humanitarian systems” and “to justify ethnic cleansing and genocide”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera after GHF chief Jake Wood’s resignation, Gunness said the focus should be on how to “stop the slaughter” in Gaza.

“The latest pictures I have seen of babies and young children coming out of Gaza, they look like the emaciated survivors of Hitler’s and the Nazis’ death camps that were liberated in 1945,” Gunness said.

“So the question is, will the Europeans and Americans who were so crucially involved in those tragic events in World War II now actually take effective action?” he asked.

“Will they stop the supply of arms, in compliance with the International Court of Justice? Will they stop trading with Israel, in compliance with European and their own legislations on arms on commercial trading with Israel?”

Gunness likened the GHF to a group of “mercenaries”, saying that it is not qualified or experienced to distribute aid in Gaza.

He stressed that the only organisation that is capable of delivering aid is UNRWA.