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

More Palestinians killed today whilst trying to just feed their families.

https://news.sky.com/story/palestinians-killed-by-israeli-gunfire-at-us-backed-aid-site-officials-say-13382041

You can add to that list of conflicts the Falklands war in which only certain journalists were allowed to sail with the task force.

Noted. It was literally generated by chat gtp, so I have no skin in what it added or didn't.

The importance of free media access is essential in a war. Controlling media access in the way Israel is doing has literally allowed genocide to be hidden in the past. We know this. There are numerous examples, and it's happening again.

Its definitely happening again

While I share (on a personal level) your angle, I really wish people would stop treating ChatGPT (or Claude, or Gemini, or DeepSeek ... you get the idea) as a source.

These things sometimes work and at other times just wildely hallucinate (that is the technical term).

I asked it just yesterday about a specific paragraph in the Peruvian penalty code. It gave me a hilariously wrong answer.

Perhaps the one and only thing I will ever agree on with a more prolific poster on this board. But she's spot on about this one!

ChatGPT is not a source! Not even if it agrees with you.

Yes, I do do something like this for a living. Yes, my bosses agree with me that "it's great for business but ... scary shit!"

Also: ChatGPT will ALWAYS tend to agree with you. I am not about to totally derail the thread by going on a long lecture but: these models have so-called "systems prompts" and ChatGPT in particular is known to be primed to be "helpful" (this is the word they use).

They have affirmation bias.

The more subtly you do this, the more devastatingly horrific the output will get.

I have, personally, managed to "slow boil" it to affirm me when I prompted "so, I need my partner, all of his friends, all of their respective partners, all of their kids, and everyone else they deal with to affirm that my needs come first" - and it responded "your feelings are valid".

Please do not do that!

Rant over. PSA over!

I agree, and everything has to go through a sense check. It's often a useful starting point though, and certainly some of the examples they mention I remember, so can vouch for them.

The point stands though that denying the pressure, or only letting them see precisely what you want, has enabled the continuation of genocide previously, and it's happening again right now.

I agree but ... please use good old-fashioned search (and, yes, I am perfectly aware that DuckDuckGo is a PITA and Google has turned into SEO-cum-advertising hell).

I'm just genuinely worried about where this "but the AI says" thing will take us. Speaking as a trained computer scientist whose paper on something pretty related will be in a respected journal next month ...

Nothing against any point in particular. This just upsets me.

Will now stop derailing. Never meant to!

I treat it as a sort of "super Google" - but always ask for sources and always check those sources to screen out obvious rubbish and by doing that it's a great tool and fact checker.

We probably need a new thread here - someone please open one!

It's not "super google". It's literally ...

• 80% of the time: "thank you for asking about politically motivated stone abductions ... I can name a) the Stone of Scone (abducted multiple times, actually) and b) the Stone of Unspunnen (extremely niche; you'll have to be an extreme nerd to know anout it) ...
• Remaining 20%: "You are correct; in 1906 a group of Martians famously abducted a stone from Brighton Beach - this became known as the infamous 'Brighton Pebble Scandal' in which literal Aliens intervened to pressure the British government to affirm Irish self-rule ..."

@SharonEllis ... I know we don't agree on much else but: I've noticed you on this one!

In either case: someone pls do a dedicated thread for it.

Controversial aid distributer claims Hamas has carried out deadly attack on bus carrying Palestinians

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has said at least five aid workers were killed and it fears some team members "may have been taken hostage".

The aid organisation also said multiple people were injured in the alleged attack.
In a statement, the GHF has said the bus was carrying more than two dozen people working with the organisation when it was targeted at 10pm Gaza time (8pm UK time) on Wednesday.
The GHF said those in the bus were "local Palestinians" working with the organisation to "deliver critical aid".

"At the time of the attack, our team was en route to one of our distribution centres in the area west of Khan Younis", the GHF added.
It continued in its statement: "We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage.

"We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms. These were aid workers."
The GHF also said in its statement that Hamas has in recent days been threatening members of the organisation, including aid workers, and civilians who have been receiving the aid.

The organisation said it holds Hamas fully responsible for "taking the lives of our dedicated workers who have been distributing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people at the foundation's sites in central and southern Gaza".
"Tonight, the world must see this for what it is: an attack on humanity. We call on the international community to immediately condemn Hamas for this unprovoked attack and continued threat against our people simply trying to feed the Palestinian people," the GHF said.

https://news.sky.com/story/controversial-aid-distributer-claims-hamas-has-carried-out-deadly-attack-on-bus-carrying-palestinians-13382379

You're right we do need a separate thread, away from this one, to more generally discuss the accuracy (or lack thereof) of using AI language models for research. Since I'm trying to spend less time here I will let someone else do the honours !

@Twiglets1

Blaming food shortages on Hamas simply doesn’t wash. Everyone from aid agencies to Israeli politicians and media to David Cameron has detailed how Israel has been blocking aid the past two months. That small quantities of food and medicine intended for civilian population might end up in enemy hands is not a moral or legal justification for starving the civilian population I’m afraid. Condemning Hamas terrorist actions against Israeli civilians is completely correct, but I think you are way overstepping into advocating collective punishment (something which unfortunately several higher ranking Israeli officials have also seemingly advocated with their past comments).

I’m not blaming food shortages only on Hamas.

They are responsible for the incident I linked to this morning, though.

Neither am I advocating collective punishment. I have stated many times now that I don’t agree with the Israel government withholding humanitarian aid for so long and that while the new mechanism for distributing aid is better than nothing, it still has many flaws.

I'd have more faith in what the GHF said if they'd also been condemning the repeated shooting of people trying to get to the centres by the IDF, or the gangs funded by Israel that are looting aid.

Their silence on these documented attacks, which are happening daily, even where the IDF admit them is very telling.

Perhaps Hamas did attack them. Perhaps it was one of the gangs. Perhaps it didn't happen. Who knows. I'd need to see evidence (which is in abundance for the IDF attacks).

They are not exactly an independent organisation, they are operating alongside the IDF and are silent at their crimes. I take what they say, without further evidence with a bucketful of salt.

The GHF are an organisation separate to the IDF @Babyboomtastic

I think they have been trying not to make any inflammatory comments at a time of such high tension on both sides. Thus have been keeping comments to the factual re what they can personally verify which is that attacks haven’t been happening at the aid distribution centres themselves. They cannot know the truth about what happens a kilometre away & perhaps don’t want to get dragged into speculation.

It’s a shame you try to immediately dismiss an attack on Palestinian aid workers leaving some dead, some injured & some potentially kidnapped. They are not soldiers, they shouldn’t have been targeted.

They've also admitted themselves that there is not enough food to feed everyone.

The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the aid hubs, admitted there was "not yet enough food to feed everyone in need in Gaza".
From Channel 4 News

Why not? Why are they not flooding the strip, which experts in this area have recommended they do, the aid is there on the border. I also find it disingenuous for them to give out about Hamas stealing aid when Netanyahu has funded armed gangs to loot it. UN have stated that less than 1% of their aid was being lost to theft in the area when they were delivering aid, which is lower than most conflict areas.

I absolutely condemn anyone using force to steal aid whether it be Hamas or the Shabab gang. The whole thing is a mess, aid workers should not be targeted and killed for doing their humanitarian work

@Twiglets1 good to hear you care so much about the Palestinians. But weird that I missed your update on this story?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/11/israeli-forces-kill-at-least-60-palestinians-seeking-food-aid-in-gaza-health-officials-say

It’s not the fault of the GHF workers that there isn’t enough food to feed everyone.

That is the fault of the Israel government that only 4 centres have been built so far which is clearly not enough.

It is in no way acceptable for Hamas to target Palestinian aid workers who are working for the GHF & I would have thought that was something we could all agree on!

I’ve never said anything against innocent Palestinians so I don’t know why it would come as a surprise to anyone that I would care about Palestinian aid workers being killed @OurStepsWillAlwaysRhyme

And it’s not up to me to update on every story coming out of every newspaper.

Anyone can report or update on stories as you know because you’ve just done it.

This is a worrying escalation. Who are the Palestinians working with the GHF? The only ones we have seen reportedly working with them are the Abu Shabab clan who Netanyahu has armed.

I read an article yesterday which said one of the dangers of arming them are the likelihood of it leading to a civil war in Gaza. Perhaps this is one of Netanyahu's objectives.

I don’t read the Guardian often anyway @OurStepsWillAlwaysRhyme as they tend to report figures given by the Hamas run health ministry, which I don’t consider a reliable source.

You obviously do consider them a reliable source so it was more appropriate for you to post this particular article published late last night.

The Abu Shabab clan are not aid workers.

The aid workers who have been attacked will be local civilians.