TEHRAN – The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US-Israel-backed aid program that ignored the United Nations and used armed US contractors, was permanently shut down on November 24th.
Washington and Tel Aviv immediately celebrated the shutdown as a victory. GHF’s final statement declared that it had achieved its mission, delivering a record 187 million meals without a single box falling into the hands of Hamas. US officials said the project was conclusive evidence that the UN system was irredeemably corrupt and that only a militarized model could prevent aid from being “stolen by terrorists.”
But the facts on the ground tell a different story. From its inception in late May until its abrupt end, the GHF operated a system that deliberately lured starving Palestinian civilians into open killing zones. All four distribution points are deliberately located within corridors in which Israeli forces operate, three in the far south near Rafah and one near Nuseyrat in the heart of the Strip. The site was surrounded by Israeli forces and guarded by armed American contractors.
Food distribution announcements were broadcast over loudspeakers and sent by text message, drawing thousands of desperate people across miles of rubble and destroyed roads. As crowds gathered outside, gunfire erupted regularly, often without warning. Independent monitors, including the United Nations Human Rights Office, Air Wars, Forensic Architecture, and the Gaza Ministry of Health, documented that approximately 1,000 Palestinians were killed and thousands injured at or near these sites. After analyzing satellite imagery, video, and survivor testimony, Human Rights Watch concluded that several incidents appeared to amount to war crimes.
From the beginning, the United Nations refused to engage with the GHF. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the model “an abomination.” Humanitarian organizations including Oxfam, Save the Children, Médecins Sans Frontières and Amnesty International have warned that forcing starving civilians into militarized corridors amounts to genocide and called for the facility’s immediate closure.
warning ignored
The food boxes themselves can weigh up to 20 kilograms, a deliberate design choice to exclude the elderly, injured, and small children. Those who were able to reach the sites often paid exorbitant transportation costs or risked sniper fire during the journey.
For the United States, GHF was never just about feeding people. Trump administration officials repeatedly cited this as evidence that “Hamas is stealing aid,” and used the story to justify continued military aid to Israel while maintaining a veneer of humanitarian concerns.
On the same day, the Foundation was officially closed for good. The US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center has announced that it will “build on the GHF model” for the future. This single statement proves that the whole project was never about providing food to Gaza. It was a six-month trial to combine humanitarian aid and military occupation.
GHF was never a neutral charity. It was a calculated lethal experiment that used hunger as a weapon, turning bread, a basic human need, into food, and causing death with bullets.