Published: 5 June 2025
Last updated: 5 June 2025
The first four Israel-backed humanitarian food distribution centres opened in Gaza a week ago but their management is a matter of deep controversy.
The centres are run by a controversial US-based group named the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been criticised for violating core humanitarian principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. At least 58 Palestinians have reportedly been killed near the centres
Concerns about Israeli involvement in aid distribution have been heightened by recent polls which show 65% of Israelis are unconcerned by Gaza's humanitarian crisis and 82% support expelling Palestinians from Gaza.
Restarting aid
Israel halted all humanitarian aid into Gaza in early March, with government officials stating their goal was to force Hamas to accept new ceasefire terms and release hostages taken during the group’s terror attack on Israel on 7 October. The aid ban meant no supplies entered the territory for 11 weeks, pushing Gaza’s 2.1 million people deeper into a hunger crisis. A UN-backed report warned in late April that one in five people were facing starvation, with the entire Gaza Strip edging closer to famine.
Facing growing international pressure, Israel eased its blockade two weeks ago, allowing a small amount of aid to enter Gaza—distributed through UN channels and via the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). However, according to Palestinian officials and international aid groups, the aid trickling in remains far below what is needed to meet the population’s needs.
Comments2
Rachel Sussman7 June at 06:12 am
Never ceases to amaze me how whatever Israel does is pointed against it even by some of our own…
When hundreds of trucks went daily into Gaza, it was still not enough and no one seemed to care much about Hamas looting and stealing… it somehow was accepted as ‘the price’ of providing aid to the people of Gaza even though no aid whatsoever was probided to the hostages…
When Israel stopped the trucks, rightly claiming that enough food for six months was provided and it intended to force Hamas to release this food rather than hoard it for its own military purpose, Israel was accused, even by our own , of starving babies ( which of course it was not) nor was it breaking international law which states clearly that if humanitarian aid is used by the enemy for its benefit or to prolong fighting, it can be ceased…
When Israel due to pressure allows some aid again, but rightly insists on by passing Hamas, it is accused of ‘shooting’ Palestinians and of having ‘troubling political agendas’…. As for the first, the reports fail to mention Hamas’s involvement in both trying to create chaso and in the shooting… yet Israel still reviewed, stopped to make it safer and now renewed… but of course all this does not count… And as for agenda, of course it has a political agenda – to break dependency of the people on Hamas and to weaken Hamas first as it hopefuly loses support of the people and second as its resources inevitably deplete… I cannot see anything troublesome about this ‘agenda’, it actually is a sensible way to hasten bringing an end to this war…
But it seems that again Israel is this terrible evil force..,
As for the people of Gaza, while there is an unfortunate extreme stream who wants to see the people of Gaza being moved, the bulk of Israelies want to see the population offered the opportunity ( voluntarily) to move somewhere else where they can rebuild their lives rather than remain refugees in Gaza, and allowing that rebuilding Gaza will take its time… the strange thing is that in every other war, all who accuse Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ will be in the front line fighting for visas and migration opportunities for the refugees…
If one cannot see this double standard positions, one is willingly blind to see that the problem is not necessarily Israel but rather the attitudes towards Israel… The saddest thing is to see our own people fall prey to this prooaganda and blindness…
Jack Chrapot5 June at 07:16 am
So it’s damned if don’t and damned if you do.
The HGF claims it delivered 7,000,000 meals in a short space of time and its motives get questioned even when it releases CCT footage of Palestinians firing at their own people.
Anyone questioning the motives of Hamas profiting from aid stolen from the people it was meant for or the UN agencies and other NGO’s that collude with terrorists?