By Tarek Bae
File Photo
“Gaza is on the verge of economic and humanitarian collapse. People live day to day, always at risk from hunger and disease,” notes a UN report. Yet these words were written not in 2025, but by the Independent UN Commission of Inquiry on Gaza in 2019.
Israel has enforced a blockade on the Gaza Strip since 2007. No one and nothing enters or leaves without Israeli permission, including at the crossing to Egypt. Every import and every exit requires an application to Israeli authorities. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called Gaza the world’s largest open-air prison. Between 2017 and 2021, Israel blocked materials needed to maintain the water system. In 2017, the UN stated that 97% of Gaza’s water was undrinkable. Oxfam concluded the same year that Gaza was the most water-scarce place on earth.
From 2023 onward, Gaza became the target of genocide. From the first days, the blockade on essentials was radically expanded. On Oct. 8, 2023, then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced there would be “no electricity, no food, no fuel,” because Israel was fighting “human animals.” The total blockade, combined with unprecedented bombardment, turned Gaza into the greatest humanitarian crisis of the 21st century.
During this genocide, international agencies, especially the UN, struggled to keep civilians alive. More than 400 distribution points tried to provide the bare minimum. Political pressure was needed again and again. There were 11 UN resolutions in all, 4 by the Security Council, 5 by the General Assembly and 2 by the Human Rights Council, calling on Israel to enable sufficient humanitarian aid. Israel dismantled every channel through which aid could be delivered. More than 900 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since the genocide began. Never before in any war has the toll on aid workers been so high.
Netanyahu’s starvation strategy
By March 2025, the total blockade hardened into an open starvation strategy. “We have decided to stop all deliveries into Gaza, including food, water and aid,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on March 2, 2025.
Barely two months later, in May, Israel and the US rolled out the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). This, Israeli officials said, would be the new and only route for humanitarian aid. Rumors of a new distribution mechanism had circulated since February, a design Israel was planning with US partners. Coverage of those plans was overshadowed by Donald Trump’s “Gaza Plan.” In a joint press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Washington on Feb. 4, 2025, Trump publicly declared the intention of the US to “take over” the Gaza Strip. That the GHF sits inside this vision follows from statements by GHF officials. In June 2025, Executive Chairman Johnnie Moore Jr. said: “The United States will take full responsibility for the future of Gaza.”
It is not a purely American venture. Logistical coordination at the GHF is led by Israeli Brigadier General Yaakov Baruch. Despite its name, the GHF is not a foundation; it is a political-military organization. Alongside the Israeli military, mercenaries from the US are involved. According to The Times of Israel, Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Trump, is the chief architect of the idea. The US initially put €30 million ($35 million) into the project, with further pledges. In July 2025, Trump complained that no one had expressed gratitude. But what exactly should anyone thank the GHF, Israel, or the US for? GHF spokesperson Shahar Segal offers an answer. “It is frustrating to see people constantly blaming Israel, when in reality it is Israeli logistics that ensure humanitarian food reaches those who desperately need it. The GHF model is saving lives.”
Is that true? No. Among the familiar set of claims used to relativize the genocide is the allegation that allowing international aid only helps Hamas. Again and again, the line is that aid never reaches civilians. Another claim is that Hamas steals humanitarian supplies. The conclusion is clear: this is propaganda. Videos of armed guards on trucks or of lootings by armed gangs have been presented by Israel, in a misleading fashion, as Hamas seizures.
A review by the United States Agency for International Development examined 156 incidents of loss or theft of US-funded aid between October 2023 and May 2025. It found not a single piece of evidence that any of those incidents could be attributed to Hamas. In 44 cases, there were links to Israeli military activity. Reuters reported that Israeli military offices had produced no evidence of systematic theft by Hamas. The New York Times cited sources inside Israel’s government who acknowledged they had none either.
From 400 aid points to 4 militarized sites
Is the GHF more effective at distributing aid? Not at all. Instead of the 400 international distribution points that once existed, Israel’s blockade and the imposition of the GHF have left only 4 highly militarized sites, with just 1 in the densely populated north. The UN calculates that Gaza’s basic humanitarian need amounts to around 600 truckloads a day. By its own account, the GHF moves at most 26 truckloads daily, roughly 4% of what is required. In a territory facing acute hunger, such an amount is not small—it is nothing.
According to the IPC Famine Review Committee, the whole of Gaza has been in IPC Phase 5 since July, the highest alert, a catastrophic food emergency. People in this phase are at immediate risk of starvation. More than 700,000 people have gone days without any food. The UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, was blunt: “Israel has made clear its intention to starve everyone in Gaza.”
What Israel and the US call a distribution mechanism and a foundation is, in the words of Doctors Without Borders, “slaughter dressed up as humanitarian aid.” Starving civilians are forced to walk up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) under the burning sun to reach GHF sites. Arrival does not guarantee help. More than 1,881 starving civilians have been killed at or near GHF distribution sites. The Israeli army regularly fires indiscriminately into the waiting crowd.
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, calls the GHF “an alibi for the systematic starvation of Gaza.” For him, the logic is clear. Israel destroyed the humanitarian infrastructure in order to replace it with a facade organization under military control. OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke sees in the GHF a “distraction.”
What does it distract from? Netanyahu has said the plan out loud. On May 11, according to the Israeli outlet Maariv, he tied aid to permanent expulsion. Those who receive aid at a given place should never see that place again and must evacuate. “The residents of Gaza whom we are expelling will not return. They will no longer be there. We will control the place. There is no other war aim. All other goals are mere eyewash.”
By the Israeli government’s own account, the GHF is a means to drive Palestinians out of Gaza or to let them die, by deliberately starving them, denying supplies, and cutting off humanitarian aid.
*The author is the editor-in-chief of the German journal itidal.de. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu.
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