Despite its chief stepping aside because of concerns over its independence, an NGO supported by Israel and the US has announced that it will begin distributing aid to besieged Gaza.
Hours after its executive director Jake Wood resigned, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announced in a statement on Monday that it would begin providing direct aid to the battered enclave.
By the end of the week, GHF, which has been contracted to distribute food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the area’s 1 million Palestinians, announced its goal of reaching out to them.
The NGO then stated that it intends to “scale quickly to serve the full population in the weeks to come.”
Aid organizations in Gaza have warned of widespread famine and numerous deaths from starvation, but reports suggest that the few aid deliveries that have entered the enclave have only recently reached Gaza’s 2.3 million people, which is below the threshold for Israel’s pledge to allow “minimal” aid deliveries.
The UN and other aid organizations have resisted working with GHF, warning that the conditions in which it will operate, including requiring Palestinians to gather at central aid locations, will put people at risk and thwart other aid efforts.
Wood made the announcement on Sunday, citing concerns over GHF’s independence.
He said in a statement that the organization couldn’t “agree to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon,” and that Israel should allow for more aid.
The GHF board stated in a statement that it was “disappointed” by the resignation but that it would continue to support Strip-wide aid efforts.
The US State Department’s office confirmed that the organization remained in support of the NGO.
Wood’s departure comes as a result of growing criticism of GHF’s independence and operational structure.
According to The New York Times, the NGO, which claims to have been based in Geneva since February, was the result of “private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers, and business people with close ties to the Israeli government.”
Concerned by the GHF’s operations, which would force civilians to walk long distances to get aid and cross Israeli military lines, the UN and other major humanitarian organizations have expressed concerns that they could undermine existing relief efforts.
The GHF’s distribution plans, which Israel and the US claim are meant to thwart Hamas’ control of aid, could be used to further Israel’s plan to depopulate northern Gaza by concentrating aid in the south, raises the possibility.
Weapon of war
In Gaza, a worsening humanitarian catastrophe is the setting for the controversy surrounding the GHF.
1.95 million people in Gaza, or 93 percent of the population, are living in acute food insecurity or lack food, according to the most recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report.
Aid organizations have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war and have described the situation as a human-caused famine.
Robert Patman, a professor of international relations at the University of Otago in New Zealand, claimed Wood’s resignation reflected the absence of backing from well-known humanitarian organizations for GHF.
It’s no secret that the majority of aid donors were hesitant to support this proposal, which is essentially a start-up, he said.
Source: Aljazeera
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