US confirms plan for private firms to deliver Gaza aid despite UN alarm

[Twiglets1]

The US has confirmed that a new system for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza through private companies is being prepared, as Israel's blockade continues for a third month.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said "distribution centres" protected by security contractors would provide food and other supplies to over a million people initially, as part of an effort to prevent Hamas stealing aid.

He denied Israel would take part in aid delivery or distribution, but said its forces would secure the centres' perimeters.

It comes as details emerged about the controversial plan, which UN agencies have reiterated they will not co-operate with because it appears to "weaponize" aid.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp92rlm300mo

From the same article:

Hamas, which has in recent months faced protests by many Palestinians who want the devastating war to end, has also warned residents against accessing GHF sites, saying Israel was using the company to collect intelligence information.

"Do not go to Rafah ...Do not fall into the trap...Do not risk your lives. Your homes are your fortress. Staying in your neighbourhoods is survival, and awareness is your protection," a statement published by the Hamas-linked Home Front said.

"These schemes will be broken by the steadfastness of a people who do not know defeat," it added.

The “GHF” is largely staffed by former notorious Blackwater mercenaries.

If Hamas diverting aid on a large scale were a problem (there is no evidence it was), then this plan doesn’t prevent Hamas from stealing aid. Taking 40kg box off a woman or child who is being forced to walk kilometres alone to collect it at one of only four pre-announced aid distribution points would make it easier to steal aid, not harder.

The fact this GHF plan has been approved by Israel and the US is kind of proof that aid being stolen wasn’t really an issue.

The BBC has asked the GHF how many lorry loads of aid got in and how many people were able to pick up aid, but it has not yet received a response.

That is probably one reason it’s been taken from the UN and international NGOs- no one independent can count how much aid is really getting into Gaza.

BBC: On Tuesday, the Israeli military said in a statement that two distribution sites located in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah and the Morag Corridor, which separates the city from the rest of Gaza, had begun operating and distributing food to thousands of families.

Hundreds of Palestinians were seen queueing at the site in Tal al-Sultan, where food parcels were handed out by Palestinian workers.
"We stood in a long queue. We did not deal with the Israeli army or any American staff," one recipient told a local journalist.

A Palestinian working with one of the local companies involved in the operation told the BBC that "dozens of Palestinian workers from three Palestinian companies are overseeing the distribution process, which runs daily from 09:00 to 19:00".

The employee, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media, added: "The distribution is co-ordinated with five American security personnel, who are present on-site, but there are no Israelis involved in the process."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev41em3r9lo

Reuters: Palestinians flock to US-backed aid centres despite concern over checks
Hundreds of Palestinians stormed sites where aid was being distributed by a foundation backed by the U.S. and Israel on Tuesday, with desperation for food overcoming concern about biometric and other checks Israel said it would employ.

By late afternoon on Tuesday, The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, said it had distributed about 8,000 food boxes, equivalent to about 462,000 meals after an almost three-month Israeli blockade of the enclave.

Hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, some on foot or in donkey carts, flocked towards one of the distribution sites in the southern city of Rafah, which is under full Israeli army control, to receive food packages.

Footage, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed lines of people walking through a wired off corridor and into a large open field where aid was stacked. Later, images shared on social media showed large parts of the fence torn down as people jostled their way onto the site.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinians-wary-us-backed-aid-group-begins-operations-gaza-2025-05-27/

8,000 boxes is far too little. I am a bit skeptical that each box can have 58 nutritious meals in it. It has to be like a bag each of rice, beans, lentils and flour. Dried goods that need drinking water and cooking fuel to turn into meals.

What about baby formula?

As with everything Blackwater, things don't seem to going to plan.

Palestinians in Gaza have used whatever little was left of their strength (after being starved for 60+ days) to storm one of
the compounds/ camps to concentrate them.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1927372391644074036.html?utm_campaign=topunroll

"Thousands of starved Gazans storm the dystopian Israeli-American aid complex in Rafah after being forced to stand in endless queues & bake in the sun in a fenced concentration camp while being subjected to biometric surveillance

US mercenaries & Israeli troops are opening fire

2\ Israel's Kan reports the US mercenaries were likely the ones opening fire at the starved crowds, while reports from Gaza indicate Israeli troops also fired at the crowds

People were told to stand in queue all day while mercenaries pick & choose who gets aid & who starves

3\ Israel's channel 12 highlights reports that an Israeli helicopter began firing at the starved crowed, while the American mercenaries ran away

Sources:
^https://www.kan.org.il/content/kan-news/defense/912681/^

^https://www.mako.co.il/news-military/f239747af17c5910/Article-8d9bba0d2a11791027.htm?pId=173113802^

4\ More footage of starved Gazans overrunning the Israeli-American "aid" concentration camp in Rafah after being crowded for hours under the baking sun in what can only be described as fenced animal cages."

The videos are in the link. It's a humiliation ritual.

Welcome to Iraq 2003, Gaza version and we all know how that ended.

Look at these pictures, unthinkable and disgraceful in 2025. I whatever happens now on Trump.

Images of queuing:

What the hell @BelleHathor . Are these sources usually reliable ?

This is not even remotely surprising. Speaking as someone who has been involved in aid distribution (not food aid but NFIs, nowhere near as desperate a situation).

This is precisely why no serious organisation would back this plan.

Look, when people are desperate enough they will crowd distribution points for something as trivial as blankets. And that creates genuinely dangerous situations - for the service users, for the humanitarians, for security forces, for everyone. By far the best way to avoid this is to literally make sure that there is enough for everyone. If that is not an option, and sadly at times that is the case, you want to make sure you are community-centred and trauma-informed.

This is genuinely not an unsolved problem - just one where an attempt to weaponise aid has gone horrifically wrong!

I am speechless with dismay- you can see in one of the video clips while masses are storming the aid point, dozens of other men are running towards walking figures in the left background behind a fence each struggling with one of the aid boxes. Fighting over crumbs.

No chance for any disabled person, orphaned child, pregnant/nursing mum or elderly person to get a chance at a box.

@odras Both KAN and Mako are Israeli newspapers and are usually accurate. Professor John Mearsheimer has said that ironically the reporting in Israel is far more "honest" and open compared to the MSM in the West, look at the contrast with the Reuters article.

Mohammad Shehada is a Palestinian, who thankfully highlights Hebrew articles And translates them for us in the West.

Several OSINT accounts were reporting about the incident a couple of hours ago, but they're not "professional journalists".

I think the language used by your sources shows they are not even attempting to appear professional or unbiased.

Which reputable source would talk about a "dystopian" complex in a "fenced concentration camp"?

Who would pretend US mercenaries were likely the ones opening fire at the starved crowds, while reports from Gaza indicate Israeli troops also fired at the crowds (they didn't, only warning shots were fired)

The language is hysterical, for example More footage of starved Gazans overrunning the Israeli-American "aid" concentration camp in Rafah after being crowded for hours under the baking sun in what can only be described as fenced animal cages."

Please use reputable sources - it's really not that hard to find accounts of what happened from mainstream media.

Of course not - don't be naive. Do you really think reliable sources would use language like this? Compare these accounts with those from more reputable sources like the BBC or even Al Jazeera - they do not use language like these or make these wild accusations.

Now the aid is getting through of course there will be an initial surge.
A few more days should see normalization, as long as things don’t turn nasty.

In your opinion of course.,

Anticipating this kind of response is why I specifically embedded the links in Muhammad's tweet thread to 2 Israeli Newspapers (easily translated in any browser).

Muhammad is not a professional journalist, he is just a Palestinian (whose real job is working for a European think tank) of course his language is emotive. I'm bloody emotional and angry right now and I'm not Palestinian.

It is dystopian and cruel.

Just because something is written in an Israeli newspaper doesn't automatically make it a reliable source. Strange that you would imply it does - I haven't noticed you trust Israeli sources normally.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/27/former-israeli-pm-ehud-olmert-says-his-country-is-committing-war-crimes

“Recent operations in Gaza have nothing to do with legitimate war goals,” he added. “This is now a private political war. Its immediate result is the transformation of Gaza into a humanitarian disaster area.”

Olmert said that quite often he had asserted that Israel wasn’t committing war crimes in Gaza and claimed with conviction that “in no case did a government official give orders to hit Gazan civilians indiscriminately.”

However, he added that in recent weeks “I’ve been no longer able to do so. What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. It’s the result of government policy – knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated.”

“Yes, Israel is committing war crimes,’’ he concluded.

Last week, in an interview with the BBC, Olmert described the continuing conflict as “a war without a purpose – a war without a chance of achieving anything that can save the lives of the hostages.”

I read the mako.co.il account and it was nothing at all like what you have cherry picked.

I've been here since the board was created. In the beginning if we posted sources such as Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya there were dismissed as being biased and the thread was derailed.

So it's easier to use Israeli sources, which as I said above has been noted by Professor John Mearsheimer to be quite reliable and more open. I read many apart from the above 2, including Haaretz and 972+. Luckily I also follow Israeli's who translate tv segments. Of course these will be biased depending on where they are on the political spectrum, but interesting nonetheless.

It is so upsetting.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/world-central-kitchen-founder-blasts-selfish-gaza-humanitarian-foundation-after-aid-center-overrun/

World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres tears into the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation after footage of Palestinians overrunning the latter’s newly established aid distribution sites goes viral.
“The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has left Palestinians without food. The people that created it are selfish,” Andres writes on X, lamenting that the new initiative has left Palestinians “really hungry.”

I just watched the report about it on the BBC news.

The scene was described as chaotic with Israel confirming that "it's troops fired warning shots in an area outside the compound" (American workers also fired warning shots to try to regain control) as thousands of hungry Palestinians broke through the perimeter fence to reach the boxes of aid.

However, it's back under control now with no casualties despite @BelleHathor trying to convince us that "US mercenaries were opening fire at the starved crowd" and "Israelis troops also fired at the crowds".

Al Jazeera are biased so it's quite something that you managed to find sources that are much more extreme in their outlook.

Please try getting your information from more mainstream sources like the BBC. Some people think they have a pro Palestinian bias but wow - nothing like the sources you are looking at!