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

That sounds absolutely horrific. I hope it is exaggerated or won’t happen. What countries would agree to donate towards this?

I wonder are no civil servants being paid in Gaza at all, the doctors, the nurses.

The planners were concerned that their plan could be perceived as “concentration camps with biometrics”

Gosh, I wonder why?

I wonder if they will be accused of holocaust inversion??

Awful, I often feel loss for words.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y2kd1nkleo.amp

How some posters can see these images and not feel moved is beyond me.

The little girl with the red hat... Her eyes look dead. You can see she's only barely surviving.

To think with all the natural disasters and unavoidable events this suffering is completely man made and unnecessary.

We've long been in the realm of requiring war crimes tribunals and trials for over a year.

This is a level of inflicting pain, suffering and cruelty on a level never seen before.

What makes it worse are those that provide cover or deny, deny, deny.

The CEO has now resigned because "it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/gaza-humanitarian-foundation-aid-group-jake-wood-resigns

I hope you can see now why so many of us were against the plan and not just because we didn't think delivering aid however it was done was a positive. Even the bloody CEO has resigned because he doesn't want to be complicit in this anymore.

I still think it’s better to provide aid than not provide aid, even if the method isn’t perfect. Starving people can’t eat principles.

I have no idea how aid can be provided in Gaza without the risk of it being looted by Hamas which then becomes a way of them controlling the local population and in the past selling humanitarian aid has been an income stream for them. I hope you can see that Israel can’t do anything that could help Hamas while at war with them.

I know this method (starting this week I believe) is controversial & full of flaws. There will need to be more than 4 centres built, for example. However, its a start and an attempt to solve the problem of providing aid to the people without running the risk of it being intercepted by Hamas.

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I listened to an interview with an Egyptian commentator (Dalia Ziada). She said Hamas had been concentrating aid distribution in areas which were compact and using the concentrated populations in areas they operated as a human shield. So theres a very good reason to prevent Hamas from having access to aid.

I think we’ve seen officials from UNWRA being members of Hamas so they idea that some locally employed aid workers are Hamas members are a given imo.

Absolutely do not approve of aid in exchange for biometric data, it should be given freely. I imagine the reason there will be so much security if for the safety of people distributing. A lot of the starvation will be because aid is just not getting to the right places. It’s weird, you see some very well fed gazans and some who are clearly very underweight.

Frankly there isn’t enough aid and a good portion of it has been going to the wrong places. Hamas executed 11 Gazans yesterday for “stealing” aid. I imagine those people were desperate to be stealing from Hamas.

No it’s not. It’s main goal isn’t to feed people, it’s to control them. Also who will protect the people walking long distances with their 20kg of aid?

The way to stop Hamas reselling food aid is to flood the place with food aid. This brings the value down. It’s not rocket science.

@User37482 “A lot of the starvation will be because aid is just not getting to the right places.”

There is not enough food in Gaza. Who is denying this now? Not even Netanyahu. A lot of the starvation is because children cannot survive long without food.

I'm sorry I don't understand, what is the twist here? Why is this initiative seen as controversial? What are the US planning other than distributing food?

The whole thing is a mess. Israel with a superior military power and Gaza with Hamas terrorists that seem to permeate every aspect, area, family and business in Gaza.

Palestinians as a group have effectively been dehumanised, yet, it is the evil from within, Hamas, that is exploiting and abusing their own population too and promoting war and violence. The whole situation is so complex.

It's abject male violence on both sides, Israel's with it's cold, calculating and cutting edge war tech, Hamas' with it's martyrdom, resistance fighter myths and guerilla tactics exerting harsh and coercive tactics, not just over Israel, but over their own Palestinian people, using their young ones as human shields.

Exporting traumatised Palestinians with a grudge to western countries sounds incredibly dangerous too. I wonder what Trump is cooking up, can anyone explain?

Why is it controversial to lock 10s of 1000s of people in 'compounds' guarded by people with guns under continual surveillance by drones and hand them out small rations of food once every few weeks in return for their biometric data?

Is this a serious question?

@CrackingDawn it is a complex situation as you say and you will get different answers depending on who you ask. I think this article from Times of Israel explains it well (all sources can be biased on one side or the other though).

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed Monday morning that the distribution of assistance under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation had begun, launching a system that Israel says is meant to keep aid from being diverted to the Hamas terror group.

With pressure building over humanitarian conditions in the Strip, GHF said in a statement Monday that it would be opening the first of a number of planned distribution points within hours, and aid would reach at least a million Palestinians — about a half of the enclave’s population — by the end of the week.

The announcement came hours after foundation CEO Jake Wood abruptly resigned, saying it would be impossible to implement the plan while “strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

While technically an American company, GHF was established in close coordination with Israeli authorities. Aid groups and the UN have refused to cooperate with the new initiative, saying it would create even more displacement of the Palestinian population, fail to meet local needs and violate humanitarian principles that prohibit a warring party from controlling humanitarian assistance.

Under the plan, preselected family representatives would be able to pick up boxes of food for their families from a small number of distribution sites in southern Gaza. The zones are secured and operated by private American security contractors, who arrived in the region earlier this month.

www.timesofisrael.com/israel-says-gaza-aid-starting-distribution-through-controversial-new-mechanism/

From the same article:

GHF said Monday morning it was “disappointed” by Wood’s departure but would push ahead with the plan, accusing critics of being “afraid that new, creative solutions to intractable problems might actually succeed.”

“We will not be deterred. 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,” GHF said.

GHF was created earlier this year as Israel tried to advance a new mechanism for distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza that would prevent its diversion by Hamas, which Israel accuses of siphoning off aid, hoarding supplies, and selling them to pay its operatives.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-says-gaza-aid-starting-distribution-through-controversial-new-mechanism/

It's controversial because no reputable aid agencies will back it due to concerns it breaks international law and is a means of forced ethnic cleansing from the north of Gaza.

I understand I' interested in what these private us firms might plan to do while in Gaza.

On Hamas stealing aid (the reason given for implementing this plan). No credible evidence has ever been given by the Israeli government proving this.

One of the first things the IDF did in 2023 was kill most of the people responsible for civilian law enforcement, aiming to plunge Gaza into lawlessness and allowing criminal gangs to operate freely:

"ISIS-linked gang leader behind Gaza aid looting resurfaces under Israeli protection
——
In Gaza, criminal gang leader Yasser Abu Shabab and others like him have re-emerged under the guise of "securing aid," donning uniforms and claiming to protect the limited humanitarian assistance entering the Strip.

Quds News Network reports that Abu Shabab has "established a fortified base in an Israeli-controlled zone in Rafah," now a kill-zone.

These groups operate under Israeli military protection, routinely looting aid convoys, especially in areas like eastern Rafah and Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom).

Abu Shabab is a known leader of armed gangs linked to ISIS and involved in looting aid under Israeli protection. Last year, The New Arab reported that Abu Shabab, among others, was working alongside hundreds of thieves under the protection of Israeli occupation forces near the Kerem Shalom crossing, the primary entry point for aid convoys. He comes from the Tarabin Bedouin tribe, which spans from Sinai to southern Gaza and the Negev desert, and has been identified in a UN memo as “the main influential figure behind the widespread and organized looting” of aid convoys to Gaza. Operating from eastern Rafah, Abu Shabab leads a group armed thugs who attack trucks carrying food and other critical supplies into Gaza.

Multiple reports, including from Haaretz and The Washington Post, confirm that these gangs have been seen looting in full view of Israeli forces, who neither intervene nor prevent the theft.

Abu Shabab, recently active again on social media, boasts of his gang's coordination, while his armed men beat aid drivers and demand protection money, worsening conditions for a starving population.

Meanwhile, Israel has systematically targeted Palestinian police and security officers assigned to guard aid deliveries. Despite international pressure, only a trickle of aid has been allowed in, with Israel striking those attempting to protect it. While Israel enables and facilitates the looting, its propaganda blames Hamas for stealing aid, deflecting responsibility and masking its own role in orchestrating chaos and famine in Gaza."

https://x.com/TheCradleMedia/status/1926339007136285093

On stealing aid/proof:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1926198067247690005.html

Genocide deniers' dumbest talking point: "Gaza famine is caused by Hamas stealing food"

Stealing it for what? "To buy weapons" US Amb. says

FROM WHERE? Walmart? Gaza is fully sealed off

"To sell on the blackmarket" he says. AND DO WHAT WITH THE MONEY? Only thing to buy is FOOD

They can't use the money to buy a bombed house (92% of homes destroyed). They can't use the money go on vacation in the Deir Al-Balah riviera. They can't store the money in banks (Israel destroyed every single bank in Gaza, except one administrative office that doesn't take any deposits or make any withdrawals).

Nothing goes into Gaza except food & medicine. So Hamas would steal food to sell in order to buy food?!? Do those propagandists hear themselves?

The only documented organized systematic looting happening in Gaza right now is by Israeli-backed criminal gangs who enjoy full protection from the IDF & operate in Rafah (where no Palestinian is allowed).

Joe Biden’s humanitarian envoy David Satterfield admitted in February 2024 that “No Israeli official has…come to the administration with specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance delivered by the UN in center & south of Gaza since October 21 [2023].”

Israel’s own ambassador to the EU, Haim Regev, had said in mid-October 2023 that “there’s no evidence EU aid went to Hamas.”

UN April 2025: “there is no evidence of large-scale aid diversion.”

PS. Every UN agency & serious expert says the only way to stop looting (inc by criminal gangs) is to flood Gaza with aid; then there would be no value in looting food when it's abundant & available to allI explained this in depth here:

Israel subjects Gaza to the world's most meticulous surveillance in history, yet they NEVER presented a single piece of evidence showing Hamas looting aid

None-stop drone & satellite surveillance of every inch of Gaza, eavesdropping on every phone call & message, yet nothing!

See what I mean about you get different answers depending on who you ask and all sources can be biased @CrackingDawn

I wouldn’t personally take someone seriously that uses language like “Genocide deniers dumbest talking point” but some people do.

Anyway, the new initiative is going ahead starting today so time will tell whether it helps the thousands of children currently at risk of malnutrition or starvation or whether it makes their situation even worse.

Well he is a Palestinian, born in Gaza so I give him the right to call people whatever he likes right now in this current situation.

I find the term genocide used in this context problematic, manipulative and borderline anti semitic. That does not mean there aren't serious human rights concerns or indeed war crimes being committed by both sides. The region is hugely complex and the way Israel is going about managing its interests is very problematic. It's also very worrying how powerful Hamas became and that they brutally abuse their own people, without morals, scruples or any shred of humanity. And major world powers, such as the US* *, Russia, Iran, and China, use this conflict to advance their strategic interests, so a reasonable resolution seems impossible. I wish we had better world leaders to deal with this mess and bring about lasting peace.

I prefer to use attempted ethnic cleansing myself when discussing it because Israel themselves have been clear that that is their goal. There is no way people can argue that that isn't what it is and posts can't get taken off on a tangent when you are just repeating what has been openly stated as the plan for Gaza going forward.