Debated United States-funded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Ends Relief Activities
The disputed, US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announces it is concluding its aid operations in the affected area, following nearly half a year.
The group had earlier paused its several relief locations in Gaza after the truce agreement between Hamas and Israel was implemented in recent weeks.
The GHF aimed to bypass the UN as the main supplier of humanitarian assistance to Gazans.
International relief agencies would not collaborate with its approach, stating it was improper and dangerous.
Many residents were killed while seeking food amid chaotic scenes near the organization's distribution points, primarily from Israeli forces, based on UN documentation.
Israeli authorities stated its soldiers fired alerting fire.
Operation Conclusion
The organization declared on recently that it was concluding activities now because of the "effective conclusion of its crisis response", with a total of three million packages containing the amounting to in excess of 187 million sustenance units provided to residents.
The GHF's executive director, the foundation leader, further mentioned the American-directed Civil-Military Coordination Center - which has been established to help execute the United States' Palestinian peace proposal - would be "implementing and enlarging the system the foundation tested".
"The foundation's approach, in which Palestinian factions were unable to divert and benefit from humanitarian assistance, was significantly influential in getting Hamas to the table and establishing a truce."
Comments and Positions
Hamas - which denies stealing aid - welcomed the closure of the humanitarian foundation, according to reports.
A spokesman for said the organization should be subject to scrutiny for the harm it caused to Palestinians.
"We urge all global human rights groups to guarantee that responsibility is assigned after causing the death and injury of thousands of Gazans and obscuring the nutritional restriction approach implemented by the Israel's administration."
Operational Background
The organization commenced activities in Gaza on late May, a seven days following Israel had partially eased a complete restriction on humanitarian and trade shipments to Gaza that continued for 77 days and resulted in critical deficits of vital resources.
Three months later, a famine was declared in the Gaza metropolitan area.
The organization's sustenance provision locations in various parts of the Palestinian territory were managed by American private security firms and located inside regions under Israeli military authority.
Aid Organization Objections
United Nations agencies and their collaborators said the system breached the fundamental humanitarian principles of objectivity, fairness and autonomy, and that directing needy individuals into armed forces regions was fundamentally dangerous.
The UN's human rights office said it recorded the deaths of a minimum of 859 residents seeking food in the vicinity of GHF sites between late May through end of July.
Another 514 people were fatally wounded around the routes of UN and other aid convoys, it added.
The majority of these individuals were fatally wounded by the Israeli forces, as per the organization's documentation.
Conflicting Accounts
Israeli defense forces stated its troops had fired warning shots at people who approached them in a "menacing" fashion.
The foundation stated there were no firearm incidents at the aid sites and claimed the international organization of using "false and misleading" statistics from Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.
Ongoing Situation
The GHF's future had been indefinite since militant groups and the Israeli government approved a halt in hostilities arrangement to execute the initial stage of Trump's peace plan.
It said aid distribution would take place "free from intervention from the two parties through the international bodies and their affiliates, and the humanitarian medical organization, in combination with other global organizations not linked whatsoever" with Palestinian factions and Israeli authorities.
International organization official Stephane Dujarric stated recently that the GHF's shutdown would have "no impact" on its operations "because we never worked with them".
The official further mentioned that while additional assistance was reaching the Palestinian territory since the truce was implemented on October 10th, it was "inadequate to address all necessities" of the over two million inhabitants.