The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is yet another facet of the US-supported Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip. Under the guise of providing aid, the GHF has enabled: mass killings, the replacement of UN-led humanitarian operations, the weaponization of aid, and plans for forced displacement and ethnic cleansing. The GHF is part of the broader aim to legitimize the re-establishment of Israeli military presence and entrench colonial domination over the Gaza Strip.
Since it began operating on 16 May 2025, the GHF has not alleviated the Israeli-manufactured widespread starvation campaign in Gaza, but has instead served as a death trap to Palestinians desperately seeking aid. The so-called aid organization has led to the killing of over 130 Palestinians and the injury of more than 1,000. It has actively contributed to a deliberately manufactured state of chaos—one that was foretold and warned against by the UN, Palestinian organizations, and international humanitarian groups from the outset.
The Israeli regime claims that the GHF was created because Hamas is looting and controlling aid in Gaza—a claim publicly refuted by the UN World Food Programme director. However, by its own admittance, it is the one funding and arming the gangs responsible for looting aid convoys in Gaza, thereby manufacturing the crisis the GHF claims to address.
The GHF is denying Palestinians their dignity and their right to life-saving aid and services where they are, and is forcing them to undertake long journeys to access minimal and insufficient aid. In this, they have employed a strategy repeatedly used by the Israeli regime throughout the genocide: directing Palestinians en masse toward areas falsely designated as “safe,” only to target those areas and people with bullets and bombardment. From its inception, the GHF has not only stripped Palestinians of dignity and safety in their pursuit of basic necessities, but has also fundamentally violated the core humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. This mechanism, under the guise of humanitarianism, has only further enabled the genocide, forcing Palestinians in Gaza to choose between subjugation or death by starvation. As the UN Deputy Spokesperson, Farhan Haq, stated: “No person, anywhere, should be forced to choose between risking one’s life and feeding one’s family.”
The Foundation replaces the existing UN-led and coordinated humanitarian system, particularly obstructing the life-saving aid provided by UNRWA, with a militarized and politicized mechanism run by the very actors inflicting genocide and starvation in the Gaza Strip. This mechanism, at its core, is part of a broader strategy to eliminate international presence and entrench Israeli “sovereignty” and colonial domination—not only in Gaza, but across all of historic Palestine.
Additionally, the GHF enables the Israeli government to instrumentalize humanitarian aid in service of its strategic and military objectives to colonize the Gaza Strip and forcibly displace its population. The Israeli cabinet approved its “aid” plan, administered through the GHF, in tandem with operation “Gideon’s Chariot,” which explicitly aims at “conquering” Gaza and driving its residents toward the southern part of the Strip. This actively pushes Palestinians closer to the border with Egypt to prospectively implement Trump’s forced displacement plan, which the Israeli regime has repeatedly announced as a condition to ending the genocide in Gaza.
As the GHF continues to operate illegally and contribute directly to the ongoing genocide, states have once again failed to take any meaningful action—or even acknowledge the illegality of the Foundation’s operations or the United States’ complicity. The UK, for example, has walked back earlier statements claiming that the Israeli regime’s blockade on Gaza is illegal, and many states have resorted to symbolic gestures such as targeted sanctions against some Israeli ministers. These actions are not only useless but serve to obscure the root causes and ongoing genocide, offering the illusion of accountability while enabling Israeli crimes.
The only appropriate—and long overdue—response and minimum obligation of third party states is the imposition of diplomatic, economic, and military sanctions against the Israeli regime. These must remain in place until the genocide ends, the GHF is dismantled, the UN-led humanitarian system is fully reinstated, and the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime is dismantled.
12 June 2025
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation: Weaponizing Aid and Enabling Genocide
