Press Releases
Bethlehem, 13 May 2025
On 4 May 2025, the Israeli regime’s War Cabinet approved a new aid distribution scheme for Gaza, to replace the existing UN-led system with a mechanism run by private US military contractors, Israeli forces and a Swiss-registered entity. This plan reflects not a humanitarian pivot, but the institutionalization of the Israeli regime’s starvation policy through privatized control and politicized gatekeeping of aid. Its ultimate aims are to further destabilize the existing humanitarian system and expedite the replacement of UNRWA, re-establish and “legitimize” Israeli military presence in the Gaza Strip, and further suppress Palestinian resistance.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was registered in February 2025 in Switzerland. Its leadership—David Papazian (former CEO, Armenian National Interests Fund), Samuel Marcel Henderson, and David Kohler—has no experience in humanitarian aid. A former WFP director has been consulting with the leadership of the newly established GHF to provide the guise of legitimacy and credibility for the militarized and privatized aid distribution.
The Israeli regime has pledged to build the infrastructure for so-called “Secure Aid Distribution Sites.” Discussions are reportedly underway with donor states to finance aid procurement through the GHF. US private military firms, some with links to Israeli officials, will control logistics and security — further privatizing and politicizing what should be a neutral humanitarian function. One of the security firms involved reportedly has executives linked to Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
Aid will be distributed directly to families at the militarized ‘Secure Aid Distribution Sites’, reportedly in southern Gaza. While Israeli officials said the army will not enter the aid compounds, they will maintain full control over surrounding areas and access routes. Designated family representatives must travel to these sites (facing dangerous and potentially long treks from their tents in the humanitarian zones) to collect food boxes, after multiple inspections. Each box will contain minimal rations designed to last several days —“calorie-counted,” further institutionalizing deprivation as policy. Additionally, aid will only be provided to a portion of the Palestinian population, and does not include a component for how and when it will have the capacity to provide aid to the over 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The plan is designed for rapid implementation, likely before the anticipated expansion of the ground assault on Gaza later this month, and around Trump’s scheduled visit to the region this week. High-level US political support has been expressed, with Donald Trump and Marco Rubio pressing for all aid agencies to conform to this structure.
However, the UN Humanitarian Country Team, with full backing from the Secretary-General and OCHA, has rejected the plan. UN agencies and NGOs—including NRC—have affirmed they will not participate in a mechanism that violates the principles of neutrality, independence, and impartiality. This attempted circumvention of UN-led coordination is widely condemned as an effort to fragment and militarize aid delivery.
The UNRWA Commissioner-General has tweeted: “The manmade & politically motivated starvation in Gaza is an expression of absolute cruelty. It cannot be addressed by weaponising humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian agencies have a set of principles to ensure assistance is delivered to all those in need, without exception. The proposed model of distribution by the State of Israel falls far short from addressing the devastating hunger.”
This plan is a blatant attempt to institutionalize the weaponization of aid, legitimize the re-establishment of Israeli military presence and entrenchment of Israeli colonial domination over the Gaza Strip. States must publicly declare their rejection of this model, which attempts to replace the UN-led system with political, military and private proxies and refuse to fund it. Instead, states must resume and increase their funding to UNRWA alongside imposing military, economic and political sanctions on the Israeli regime. Supporting an Israeli controlled aid distribution mechanism constitutes complicity in genocide, the weaponization of aid and the collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.