The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.- and Israeli-backed private organisation that took over large-scale aid distribution in Gaza this year, announced it is ending its mission after delivering more than 187 million free meals, the group said in a statement Thursday.
GHF said the operation marked the “successful completion of its emergency mission in Gaza,” and that it has been in talks with other international humanitarian organisations and the Civil-Military Coordination Centre — a task force created by the U.S. and its allies in southern Israel to monitor the truce in Gaza — to hand over responsibilities.
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The foundation was deployed in May to manage a small number of distribution centres amid severe restrictions Israel placed on U.N. agencies and other international aid groups. The GHF ran four distribution points; by contrast, the U.N. system previously operated roughly 400 distribution sites across the territory.
The replacement of the U.N.-led mechanism by a privately run, donor-backed model was sharply criticised by U.N. officials and aid groups, who warned it undermined established humanitarian standards and reduced the scale and neutrality of assistance into Gaza.
Human rights bodies also blamed violence at some distribution sites. “Hundreds of Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid from GHF distribution sites,” the U.N. human rights office said, citing investigations into shootings at locations where people gathered for food.
In its statement, GHF defended its approach and said its model prevented what it described as diversion of aid by militants. “It’s clear they will be adopting and expanding the model GHF piloted,” the group’s executive director, John Acree, said, referring to international organisations and the U.N. counterparts the foundation said it had been consulting.
The U.S. State Department thanked GHF for its work and said the foundation’s distribution model “played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” according to spokesman Tommy Pigott, who posted the comment on the social platform X.
Hamas sharply rejected the foundation’s claims and called for accountability. Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for the group, said on Telegram that GHF should not “escape accountability after causing the death and injury of thousands of Gazans and covering up the starvation policy practised by the (Israeli) government.”
Analysts and aid officials said the announcement raises immediate questions about who will run distribution at scale inside Gaza and how remaining operations will be protected from interference or violence. GHF’s departure is likely to accelerate planning by international organisations and the Civil-Military Coordination Centre to scale up delivery under new arrangements, the foundation said.
The closure comes after a U.S.-brokered cease-fire and hostage-prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel took effect Oct. 10. That agreement is being treated by mediators as the first phase of a larger diplomatic process aimed at ending the war and paving the way for reconstruction and a more predictable humanitarian response in Gaza.
For now, senior aid officials say the priority is to expand safe, neutral distribution channels that can reach people across the territory while investigators continue to document the conduct of all parties at distribution sites during the recent fighting.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
