So are MSF wrong about Gaza too?

[OneKookyShark]

I have read multiple posts both on here and on the CITME forum- and I am aware how toxic the debate is.

But surely when Legitimate and highly respected international NGO talks of ‘orchestrated killing and dehuminisation”, then it starts to become utterly undeniable?

I am sure someone will be along to tell me otherwise. I also note that Netenyahu has ordered a full occupation of Gaza city today.

“Médecins Sans Frontières calls for immediate closure of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
The medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has called for the immediate closure of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US- and Israeli-backed aid organisation operating in Gaza, describing GHF-run food distribution sites in Gaza as having become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”.
In a social media post on Thursday, MSF wrote:
“In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.”
The GHF-run food distributions in Gaza, Palestine, have become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, not humanitarian aid.
In a new report, MSF analysed medical data, patients’ testimonies and first-hand medical witnesses at two MSF clinics in Gaza and found that it “point[ed] to both targeted and indiscriminate violence by Israeli forces and private American contractors against starved Palestinians” at food distribution sites run by the GHF”

“The GHF are incredibly skilled at delivering their humanitarian aid to Gazans”

Wow. Where do you even start with a statement like this.

The GHF have certainly fulfilled their mandate.

The GHF is brand new organisation with military rather than humanitarian expertise. They decided the best place to start operations was one of the most complex conflict zones with a significant number of people needing aid. They set up just 4 hubs across Gaza for millions of people facing starvation. For comparisons sake, the U.N. had over 200. The UN was shut down because apparently Hamas were diverting aid (despite there being no evidence of aid being systemically taken by Hamas). In June, data from GHF shows they opened for an average of 11minutes day. The number of injuries and deaths at aid points has increased.

But apparently they’re doing great!

The GHF is a fucked up failure. At best it's well meaning folk who got it wrong.

At worst, they are responsible for multiple deaths through malnutrition, murder and fear.

I've had a very quick look, and the 11 min figure seems to be broadly accurate (at least it's in the mainstream media such as the Guardian).

Presuming it is true, that means 1.5 Palestinians killed for every minute the GHF was operational in Gaza in June. That's breathtakingly horrific.

OP here- thought I would share this short film that I watched - it’s 25 mins long ish and worth a watch. Someone on one of these threads said that doctors no longer take this Hippocratic oath in the context of MSF impartiality- that’s not true - they do:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2025/jul/30/the-oath-to-be-a-palestinian-doctor-in-israels-healthcare-system

The GHF is not under Hamas control which is one reason it is disliked in Gaza.

I believe that is part of the problem, yes.

If Hamas don't agree with something, they have ways of making it difficult/impossible for Gazans to engage with.

I think it's very likely that Hamas are shooting people trying to access GHF aid, at any rate we often don't know who is doing the shooting or why.

Actual reasons not to like GHF:

• The GHF has zero experience in humanitarian aid. It is a brand new company who decided to try it out in a desperate and complicated conflict zone.
• They seemingly only have military experience rather than much needed aid experience.
• It opened just 4 aid hubs for 2m people on the brink of starvation (rather than the 200+ UN-run hubs).
• They have brought about an increase in injuries and deaths at aid sites.
• In June, data from GHF shows they were open for just 11minutes each day.

When the U.N. ran the humanitarian aid set up, there was no evidence of systemic stealing of aid by Hamas so I’m afraid GHF don’t get to claim they sorted this out.

There is apparently evidence that aid was looted. Also, we do not know who is shooting people coming for aid - do we?
Who would you prefer to name on this one: the army of a democratic country (which happens to be Jewish), or a bunch of murderous terrorists?
You might like to watch this, a documentary about Oct 7th 23: Screams before Silence - it's Youtube, can't post a link.

We don't know about every incident, the IDF have used the phrase "warning shots" a number of times so that would indicate they have shot at the aid seekers but there are many indications Hamas have also been in the area.

1400 is a huge amount of people though .

Published by Camera (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Anaylysis)

Channel 4 News presenter launders terrorist propaganda
From the moment the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was first publicly discussed, Andrew Fox of the Henry Jackson Society wrote last month in an in-depth report, “Hamas has regarded it as a direct threat to its interests”.

On 26 May 2025, as the GHF, the US-Israeli aid distribution scheme that bypasses a proscribed terror organisation and reduces its control over the civilian population, opened its first centres, Hamas, Fox noted, condemned the organisation as an “agent of the occupation” and warned Palestinians not to cooperate. “Anyone who accepts their assistance will pay the price, and we will take the necessary measures”, they said. In short, Hamas is threatened by this new operating model and pledged to do everything in its power to see it fail.

The British media’s one-sided, highly critical coverage of the GHF has been clear from the start. Most outlets routinely promote unsubstantiated claims by the Hamas-controlled health ministry accusing the IDF of killing ‘innocent Palestinians in queue for food’, while ignoring evidence of Hamas’s efforts to sabotage the aid distribution system, which has included armed attacks at or near GHF sites.

“It is absolutely defamatory and shameful”, Fox argues in his HJS report, how quickly “unvetted allegations” by Hamas and other about GHF, which has distributed close to 125 million meals to date, are circulated within the Western media “while the terror group’s role in inciting violence is downplayed”.

One of the most egregious examples of a British media outlet promoting Hamas propaganda occurred during an Channel 4 News interview of GHF Spokesperson Chapin Fay, by presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy, which aired on Aug 15.

While there are numerous examples of Guru-Murthy spreading disinformation and falsely accusing Fay of lying, the most astonishing narrative promoted by the presenter in the 23 minute exchange was when the presenter said or asked several times, in different variations, “Aren’t you the bait in a death trap? You’re luring people in and then they’re getting killed”.

Fay correctly called that out as Hamas propaganda.

In fact, the proscribed terror group first made that claim on May 27, one day after GHF began operating. “The occupation forces, positioned in or around those areas, opened live fire on starving civilians who were lured to these locations under the pretence of receiving aid,” the Hamas-run Government Media Office said.

The Hamas media office repeated the libel on June 3, writing that “These sites are nothing short of baited killing grounds. Civilians, driven by starvation under an imposed siege and famine, are lured to these areas and then gunned down in cold blood.“.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the Hamas-affiliated propaganda front which masquerades as a “human rights group”, issued a press release on July 20 titled “Starving civilians in northern Gaza lured to aid sites and executed, revealing brutal pattern of Israel’s genocide“.

In short, the Channel 4 News presenter promoted, in his own voice, the demented Hamas conspiracy-theory that Israel and the US set up a fake food distribution service as bait to lure Palestinians there so that Israel can murder them – the laundering of terrorist propaganda that you’d expect to see on Iranian Press TV rather than on a publicly-owned British broadcaster.

camera-uk.org/2025/08/17/channel-4-news-presenter-launders-terrorist-propaganda/

Happy to see evidence of systemic looting by Hamas and I’ll edit my list. From what I’ve read, there were certainly looting issues but it isn’t clear how much aid was taken by civilians (starving people) or Hamas (/other armed individuals). As I said, independent investigations into this deemed there to be no systemic looting issues but I’m happy to be corrected if I’ve missed some more recent info. To be clear, the U.N. system was imperfect but it appears to be much better than the GHF approach.

You’re right, we don’t know who but the increase in violence has coincided with the introduction of inexperienced armed aid companies which suggests adding guns to an incredibly volatile situation isn’t necessarily going to help. Especially when just 4 hubs are meant to be feeding millions of desperate people.

To be honest, I am deeply horrified by the things members of the Israeli government have said about Gaza and the innocent people who live there (not Hamas), the images of such wide spread bombing the Israeli army has done, the NGO and medical reports about the desperate situation for children in Gaza, the displacement of so many people and the withholding of aid. I am also horrified by the allowance and encouragement of illegal settlements and the related violence.

I am also deeply horrified by the ongoing atrocities of Hamas. No documentary, photos or accounts can truly match the horror their victims experienced or the reality of the hostages lives right now. I also don’t need any more info to be convinced that Hamas committed the worst acts against other humans. They should not be in charge of Gaza.

I don’t think pointing out issues with GHF or, in fact, critiquing the actions of the Israeli government means I am ‘siding’ with Hamas. Both sides can be causing too much death and destruction. And all governments must be held accountable for their actions - if the things I listed above weren’t happening, there would be nothing to say. In fact, in times of war if some of these things were happening, it would be understandable. But together, they paint a very worrying picture re what Israeli government really hope to gain from this war. There are dangerous extremists on both sides of this war and both sides desperately need change so that no more Israeli lives or Palestinian lives are lost.

Some interesting things in this report for anyone interested in gaining more information (some you may disagree with, some not) - THE GAZA HUMANITARIAN FOUNDATION – SEPARATING THE TRUTH FROM THE LIES

henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/HJS-Gaza-Humanitarian-Foundation-Briefing-web.pdf

As soon as the Israeli government began to restrict food supplies it set up any further distribution attempts to fail. Once there is a shortage aid will always be diverted or looted - in the case of Gaza this will be by Hamas and other militias, the gangs Netanyahu has admitted to funding and indeed anyone else who has the power and ability to do so. In situations of food insecurity, even "normal" people don't "share nicely" as their main concern is ensuring them and their family have adequate food for the coming days and weeks. The only way of ensuring adequate food is to ensure a surplus that is widely distributed so that it looses it's rarity value. Even then a percentage will usually be lost and this needs to be fed into calculations.

I have a former colleague whose last text said he had sat in a queue at a GHF distribution point for 15 days in a row (in considerable personal danger) and received nothing for himself and his family. I don't know how anyone can suggest this is an effective distribution system.

Thank you for sharing. It was an interesting read. I must admit, I struggle to understand how the franchise system they are thinking about using is preferable to experts in humanitarian aid just doing it. Replacing the hundreds of U.N. run sites with GHF run franchises led by ‘trusted locals’ seems more complicated and risky (in terms of the Hamas threat) than just using the system that was already in place. I will also always come back to the armed element - I think it is a terrible precedent to set and that humanitarian aid centres are volatile enough in times of war without adding guns. I’m also not particularly keen on an Israeli/US org being used to distribute aid. This may be cynical but after reading all the comments by Israeli politicians and seeing the wide spread bombing, I have real concerns that they don’t value the lives of people in Gaza.

I think that report is quite telling that it celebrates having provided 100,000,000 meals by the end of July 2025, when the system has been up and running for over two months. So basically, based on a population of 2,0000 the will have supplied each Gazan with 0.8 of a meal each day, and that will not have been equally distributed. They boast having provided 2,500,000 meals on one particular day, which certainly does sound impressive, but is still only just over one meal a day for each Gazan. This just emphasizes that this model will never feed Gaza. The community distribution "franchise" idea sounds more promising, but there doesn't seem to be a timescale for getting that off the ground and I struggle to see how it is likely to be more successful or safe than existing UN / NGO networks.

I think a collaboration would be best with UN run sites and the GHF run sites (but the UN is reluctant to collaborate with the GHF).

Apologies - my post should say a population of 2,000,000 - can't seem to edit

I agree that the UN should be involved again asap. Purely from an experience and capacity perspective. I can understand why they are so against working with GHF though - as I’ve said before, it’s sets such a precedent for armed aid distribution to become the norm and I think that would be a huge mistake for humanitarian aid.

So as usual we find some overlap in our views but also differences.

I can understand why a different approach was needed, despite the current GHF model having a lot of flaws. As it says in the article (as most people reading this comment won't have read it)
Traditionalists argue it breaches core principles (neutrality, impartiality, independence) by being so closely aligned with one belligerent party. GHF supporters counter that, in an unprecedented situation where the de facto authority (Hamas) is considered too predatory, a new approach was necessary, even if it is imperfect.

henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/HJS-Gaza-Humanitarian-Foundation-Briefing-web.pdf

"Traditionalists argue it breaches core principles (neutrality, impartiality, independence) by being so closely aligned with one belligerent party. GHF supporters counter that, in an unprecedented situation where the de facto authority (Hamas) is considered too predatory, a new approach was necessary, even if it is imperfect."
But this really isn't unusual in conflict situations. There is very often a "predatory" force in control of regions of people who need food aid. The difference in this case is that Israel has the ability to control all the borders.

Whilst I understand the complexity that Hamas presents as terrorists and government, I’m also not sure they are so ‘special’ that a whole new system is necessary. Looting is a huge problem in many conflict zones. In the DRC, for example, the U.N has had huge issues recently with rebels taking significant amounts of food and not respecting the lives of aid workers or civilians. I guess the argument could be to arm everyone and maybe that would be a deterrent no matter where the U.N. work but to me that just means more violence. Humanitarian aid must rely on that foundation of neutrality and independence by not injuring or killing people seeking aid. Otherwise we’re just adding another ‘side’ into conflict zones. I believe it endangers aid workers because there is no longer that (flimsy) protection that humanitarian aid workers shouldn’t be caught up in the fight.

I think it's rare that the army of a country at war have so little concern for the wellbeing of their own people as Hamas do. Hamas will kill their own people that step out of line.

We will have to agree to disagree as I do consider them more "predatory" than a normal army as don't care about how many get killed from either side as long as it helps them to achieve their goals.

@Twiglets1 - Rebel-held areas of Tigray (where they massacred civilians), Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, Tamil held areas in Sri Lanka, parts of Syria, at various times of their long and horrific war - all these areas have received food aid while under murderous "leadership". It really is sadly quite common and "rebels" rarely treat the civilian population well.
And this is why food should never be weaponised, or civilian populations punished for the actions of their governments or whoever currently has power over them.