Genocidal Israel kills hundreds of Palestinians as another scandal around GHF emerges

Israel has continued to assault Gaza with on onslaught of air strikes. Once again, many aid-seekers have been killed whilst queuing for food and other vital supplies. However, such atrocities are not taking up much space in Western media outlets. As horrifying death tolls emerge daily, the scourge of the American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) continues to bring danger to a starving population.

According to estimates from Al-Jazeera, just this week tens of Palestinians have been slaughtered every day:

• 7 July – 60 Palestinians killed
• 8 July – 100 Palestinians killed
• 9 July – 74 Palestinians killed
• 10 July – 82 Palestinians killed.

And, of those hundreds dead, many were killed by Israeli forces whilst queuing for food. In fact, more than 750 Palestinians have been killed at GHF sites since 27 May. The fact that GHF is still allowed into Gaza to create hotspots of slaughter is a disgrace.

Israel’s barbarism via GHF

However, it’s not for want of trying. Just days ago, a remarkable 200 charities came together to call for an end to:

 the deadly Israeli distribution scheme (including the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) in Gaza, revert to the existing UN-led coordination mechanisms, and lift the Israeli government’s blockade on aid and commercial supplies.

The group featured Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Save the Children. They explained that 400 previous aid distribution points had been replaced with just four:

military-controlled distribution sites, forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarized zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties while trying to access food and are denied other life-saving supplies.

The group express their collective outrage that many humanitarian charities have the infrastructure and experience to effectively distribute aid in Gaza, but Israel is instead only equipping GHF to operate in the area.

Legal proceedings

Moreover, fifteen international human rights foundations have also demanded that GHF and other private groups claiming to provide aid in Gaza to cease their actions or face legal consequences:

Failure to do so may expose these organizations and their officers, representatives, and agents to further risk of criminal and civil liability for aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide in violation of international law, U.S. law and other relevant national laws under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

GHF’s scandalous rollout of aid has killed hundreds of Palestinians, even more appalling given established organisations are ready and waiting to provide aid. However, they’re being restricted by Israel:

After Israeli authorities barred aid deliveries by UNRWA and other established humanitarian actors to an estimated 2.1 million starving Palestinians in Gaza, they—apparently with US backing—promoted the creation of GHF as a vehicle to supplant the UN-led humanitarian assistance architecture that has operated in the territory for more than seven decades.

GHF operate in a militarised fashion wholly unsuited to distributing aid to a besieged, bombed, and starving population. They couldn’t have received more condemnation from international experts and organisations who actually have extensive experience in aid distribution. However, that’s apparently just the tip of the iceberg. Further concerns have been raised as it’s emerged that a US Department of State official:

waived nine mandatory counterterrorism and anti-fraud safeguards to rush a $30m award last month to a controversial Gaza aid group backed by the Trump administration and Israel.

Of course, that aid group in question is GHF. Jeremy Lewin signed off on the millions of dollars for GHF despite the fact that doing so did not meet:

minimum technical or budgetary standards.

Instead, Lewin rushed the order through for a group that have been described by Amnesty International as having an:

inhuman and deadly militarised scheme.

The Trump administration also ignored warnings from its own affiliated aid agency about the incompetence and danger of GHF.

On top of that, the US consultancy firm who have bankrolled GHF – Boston Consulting Group – have been dropped by Save the Children for their “utterly unacceptable” choices.

Concentration camps

In a further desecration of Palestinian autonomy, it has also emerged that BCG created models:

of how much it would cost to “relocate” large parts of the Palestinian population outside of the Israeli-occupied territory.

Save the Children CEO, Inger Ashing, called the ‘relocation’ “utterly unacceptable” and said that it was:

devoid of humanity, disregards fundamental rights and dignity, and raises serious ethical and legal questions.

For their part, BCG has tried to distance itself from the ‘modelling’ mentioned above, claiming they weren’t paid for that work. It remains to be seen how that particular defence will play out in the international criminal court.

However, let’s immediately do away with the conciliatory language of BHC and GHF. This ‘relocation’ is ethnic cleansing that is forcibly displacing Palestinians into concentration camps. The Canary’s HG reported on Israel’s forcible expulsion of Palestinians in Rafah into concentration camps, along with their horrific insistence that anyone refusing to enter the camp would be killed:

Israel has made it clear that anyone who does not make their way to the new concentration camp, on what used to be Rafah city, will become a legitimate target for elimination.

Of course, as HG pointed out:

 At no point so far has Israel needed a legitimate justification for eliminating anyone. They have done what they want, to whom they want, from the start.

Israel’s policy of concentration camps is entirely in line with GHF’s plans for Gaza. When aid points have been forcibly reduced by Israel from 400 to 4, what else are starving people supposed to do? If they go to those aid spots, as 750 Palestinians cannot tell you, they’ll be killed. Middle East Eye have reported that:

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has proposed creating camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” in the Gaza Strip to house Palestinians and “deradicalise” them.

According to Reuters the plans are “voluntary,” but have allegedly already been discussed with the Trump administration. GHF have claimed that they have no such plans to implement “Humanitarian Transit Areas.”

However, given Israel’s constant tactic of repeatedly bombing and displacing Palestinians to chase them out of certain areas; given the concentration camps in Rafah right now; given the GHF dead that the group refuses to take responsibility for – it is no great stretch that people are wary of their future intentions.

GHF are an Israeli- and American-backed death machine. If anything, they fit in nicely with the horror that Israel keep unleashing on Palestinians.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English