James Shotter
Financial Times / May 27, 2025
Agency ships supplies as military continues offensive in shattered Palestinian enclave
The previously unknown group chosen by Israel to distribute aid in Gaza began operating on Monday, it said, as the Israeli military continued its offensive in the shattered Palestinian enclave.
The UN warned this month that half a million people in Gaza were facing starvation, after Israel resumed its war with Hamas and blocked all deliveries of food, medicines, fuel and aid from entering the territory for more than two months.
The desperate conditions created by the blockade and renewed fighting have drawn intense international criticism, with the UK freezing trade talks with Israel over what it called the “abominable” situation in Gaza, and the EU also pledging to review its trade agreement with the country.
In a brief statement, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said that it had begun delivering truckloads of food to distribution sites in Gaza on Monday, and that “distribution to the Gazan people began”.
“More trucks with aid will be delivered [on Tuesday], with the flow of aid increasing each day,” it added, without providing details either of the amount of aid delivered on Monday, or of the amount that would follow
Until Israel imposed its total blockade on Gaza in March, aid deliveries to the enclave had been overseen by the UN, which brought aid to people in multiple locations around the coastal enclave.
Under the new system led by GHF, individual Gazan families will have to travel to receive boxed meals every week from distribution hubs secured by US private security contractors and the Israeli military. The hubs will be located primarily in the south of Gaza.
Recommended Gideon Rachman Europe needs to keep up the pressure on Netanyahu Illustration of the EU and Israeli flags torn apart from one another Israeli officials say the new approach is designed to prevent aid being diverted to Hamas. But UN officials say that they have not seen large-scale diversion of aid, and have refused to take part in the scheme, denouncing it as a “fig leaf” for the forced displacement of the local population.
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday, the UN’s humanitarian arm OCHA said the GHF plan was “a distraction from what is actually needed”, and called for all crossings into Gaza to be reopened for aid deliveries.
Israeli military officials and other western officials have also privately criticised the plan as insufficient to remedy the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the war-torn enclave.
The credibility of the new approach was further undermined on Monday, when GHF executive director Jake Wood resigned, saying “it is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.
The GHF board said it would “not be deterred” and that it planned to reach more than 1mn Palestinians “by the end [of] the week”. On Monday night, it said it had appointed John Acree as Wood’s interim replacement.
James Shotter is the Jerusalem correspondent for the FT
