Private group tasked by Israel to bring in aid to start moving trucks into Gaza

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says it will reach one million Palestinians by the end of the week.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A private group tasked by Israel to bring large-scale humanitarian aid to Gaza announced on Sunday night that it would begin to work, after a week during which Israel allowed a few hundred trucks to enter the coastal enclave following an 11-week ban.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new American-registered organization which is also backed by the US government, said in a statement, “Our trucks are loaded and ready to go. Beginning Monday, May 26, GHF will begin direct aid delivery in Gaza, reaching over one million Palestinians by the end of the week.

“We plan to scale rapidly to serve the full population in the weeks ahead,” it added, claiming that it had “a practical, immediate and secure approach to delivering essential aid” which is “fully consistent with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”

The statement came just hours after the group’s executive director, Jake Wood, announced his resignation after two months at the helm specifically because GHF would not be able to adhere to those principles while at the same time managing to “feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza.”

GHF was established with the close cooperation of the Israeli authorities to provide aid to civilians in need while preventing it falling into the hands of Hamas, which has used the aid it has stolen in massive amounts from international organizations such as UNRWA to enrich itself, pay its troops and control the population by being its source of sustenance – at wildly inflated prices.

The UN and other international organizations involved in the aid effort to date have said that they would not cooperate with a private entity that would discriminate between Gazans as to who should receive aid and whose funding sources and distribution methods were not “transparent.”

The Foundation’s statement referred to the non-cooperation issue, saying, “Unfortunately, from the moment GHF was announced, those who benefit from the status quo have been more focused on tearing this apart than on getting aid in, afraid that new, creative solutions to intractable problems might actually succeed. We will not be deterred.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said numerous times that if Hamas keeps getting its hands on the aid, it will simply prolong the war and suffering that the global community wants to end.

A report by New York Times newspaper on Saturday tried to throw a sinister light on GHF, saying it was a purely “Israeli brainchild” rather the neutral company it purports to be, and that the foundation had refused to answer which Western European country it said had donated over $100 million to help it get started.

A Sunday report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz meanwhile questioned the bona fides of Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), the private American firm that will provide security to GHF in the field, noting that it was founded around the same time as GHF and the legal paperwork was done by the same lawyer.

SRS was the company that Israel used during the ceasefire earlier this year to check cars for Hamas personnel and weapons when it allowed hundreds of thousands of Gazans to return to their northern hometowns.

According to the leftist daily, the Prime Minister’s Office pushed for the inexperienced SRS to get the job while bypassing standard security procedures, such as receiving clearance from the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).

SRS, which is currently recruiting heavily, says its employees must be American citizens and have prior experience in intelligence agencies or combat units.

Citing internal communications that it obtained, the Israeli Shomrim news site reported that SRS will be manning roadblocks and receiving data from various eyes in the sky, including satellites, to identify terrorists who should not be receiving aid.

However, since a small company doesn’t have the wherewithal to do such intelligence work, it will mostly rely on the IDF for its information, it said.

The IDF has said that while willing it is willing to build and help secure areas of aid distribution within the Strip, which are currently in the southern region where it is directing civilians to go so as not be caught in battle zones, it does not want troops on the ground assuming the responsibility for handing out food, water, fuel or medications.