A controversial US-backed aid group for Gaza has announced that it had begun distributing food in the war-ravaged enclave, and decried Hamas’ “death threats” against organisations supporting its operations.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said in a statement on Tuesday that it “commenced operations in Gaza today, delivering truckloads of food to its Secure Distribution Sites, where distribution to the Gazan people began.”
“More trucks with aid will be delivered tomorrow, with the flow of aid increasing each day.”
The organisation, based in Geneva since February, has promised to distribute some 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation.
Israeli authorities last week allowed a trickle of aid into the Palestinian enclave for the first time since March. Source: AAP / HAITHAM IMAD/EPA
‘Weaponising’ aid
The United Nations and international aid agencies have meanwhile said they will not cooperate with the GHF, amid accusations it is working with Israel while lacking any Palestinian involvement.
UN officials have raised concerns that the organisation could be used to “weaponise” aid by restricting who is eligible to receive it.
“We do not participate in this modality for the reasons given. It is a distraction from what is actually needed (…),” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office (OCHA) on Tuesday, calling for the reopening of all crossings into Gaza and more Israeli approvals for emergency supplies.
‘Threats will not deter us’
GHF said Hamas was striving to block its operations.
It condemned “in the strongest terms Hamas’s death threats targeting aid groups supporting humanitarian operations at GHF’s Safe Distribution Sites, and efforts to block the Gazan people from accessing aid at the sites.”
“It is clear that Hamas is threatened by this new operating model, and will do everything in its power to see it fail,” it said.
While stressing its “non-negotiable” dedication to the safety and security of aid workers and civilians, GHF insisted “these threats will not deter us.”
It comes as the group is facing internal turmoil.
In a statement on Monday, GHF’s executive director for the past two months, Jake Wood, said he felt compelled to leave after determining the organisation could not fulfil its mission in a way that adhered to humanitarian principles.
He said it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”
On Tuesday, the GHF announced it had named John Acree interim Executive Director, hailing his “more than two decades of global field experience in disaster response, stabilisation programming and civil-military coordination.”
New ceasefire proposal
Hamas said on Tuesday it had accepted a new ceasefire proposal by US envoy Steve Witkoff, presented by mediators, but a spokesman for Witkoff later denied the Palestinian group had accepted.
“What I have seen from Hamas is disappointing and completely unacceptable,” the US envoy told the US news outlet Axios.
In Gaza, an early-morning Israeli strike on the Fahmi Al-Jarjawi school, where displaced people were sheltering, killed “at least 33, with dozens injured, mostly children”, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said on Tuesday.
The Israeli military said it had “struck key terrorists who were operating within a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre embedded” in the area, adding that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.
Another Israeli strike killed at least 19 people in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Bassal said.
Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas’ October 7 attack in which more than 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government. More than 53,977 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The October 7 attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
