The U.S. - Israel Potemkin Food Aid Operation

For months, Israel has maintained an embargo of all food and medical supplies to Gaza, forcing its population of roughly 2 million into starvation. As children die from hunger and desperation grows among Gaza's residents, the world has found it increasingly difficult to simply avert its gaze. As Americans, the genocide that Israel is committing is our genocide as well. Our government, whether led by Democrats or Republicans, has been and remains the largest and most important backer of the Israeli government. Both former President Joe Biden and cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump have fully supported the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza. However, both Presidents have faced pressure over the spectre of the Palestinians being starved to death. In response, both Biden and Trump have supported complex, inefficient, and ineffective solutions designed more to gain Israeli approval rather than to satisfactorily address the Israeli-caused and U.S.-supported famine.

Biden's solution to getting food and medical supplies into Gaza was a temporary floating pier on Gaza's coast. Given that Gaza's border with Israel was already lined with aid trucks ready to immediately deliver food, the need for such a pier was never really clear. Biden could have simply ordered the Israeli government to allow the aid trucks into Gaza and threatened to stop military assistance to Israel if its government did not comply. There is an expression that "he who pays the piper calls the tunes", but for some reason when it comes to the U.S.-Israel relationship, the piper always calls the tunes and kicks he who pays in the shins whenever anything but full agreement (and payment) is provided. Biden's pier suffered multiple setbacks and ended up barely being used to deliver any food. It was utilized, however, by Israeli forces who launched a surprise rescue mission to free 4 Israelis being held by Hamas. In the course of that mission, 274 Palestinians were killed. The pier was soon dismantled and its mission ended. The fact that Biden's humanitarian effort to provide food ended up being used to kill more Palestinians than it saved is emblematic of his entire effort in the region.

One thing that should be understood is that there has been an effective food distribution system in Gaza throughout the war. The United Nations and organizations such as the World Central Kitchen have distributed and provided access to food very successfully. While Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas steals the food and reserves it for its own purposes, the food assistance organizations have denied such allegations. What is evident is that the Israelis see food as a weapon and have tried to use it to achieve their own strategic goals. From the Israeli viewpoint, the effective food distribution efforts of international organizations are a problem, not a solution. As such, the Israelis have seen it as necessary to bring an end to those efforts. With the total embargo, Israel finally succeeded. On May 7, the World Food Kitchen announced that because its supplies in Gaza had run out, it would no longer be able to provide meals. In place of the international organizations, Israel and its American allies came up with a solution designed to address both public relations concerns and Israel's security goals.

The U.S. and Israel found a solution to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza in the form of an organization named the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Formed in February 2025, the organization was led until recently by Jake Wood, an American military veteran and entrepreneur. However, the organization appears to be primarily the work of CIA veteran Philip Reilly. The organization's plans mirror those of proposals by the Israeli military. There are a considerable number of unanswered questions about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. For instance, who funds it? Despite having access to considerable sums of money, the organization has not disclosed its funders. This week, former Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman claimed that GHF is being secretly funded by the Israeli defense ministry.

Not only is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation a new organization with no record of food distribution, its plans are markedly different from those of most aid organizations. Whereas most of the organizations that have operated in Gaza have utilized a large number of small food centers, the GHF plans to use very few distribution sites, mostly in southern Gaza. The sites will be protected by foreign security personnel with the Israel Defense Forces in the background. Access to food supplies will be highly restricted with reports that biometric identification systems will be used. Traditional aid organizations accurately see that this is food being used as a security mechanism and oppose such a system. Consequently, leaders of other assistance groups have criticized the plan and refused to cooperate with it. Even Jake Wood, the original Executive Director, resigned, saying that the plans were not consistent with "humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence." The group's chief operating officer also resigned.

Despite the leadership shakeup, yesterday the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation opened its first sites. Not surprisingly, things did not go well. Gazans were forced to travel long distances to reach the sites. Once there, they were herded into pens like cattle. At one location, some of the crowd grew impatient and broke through a fence. The foreign security guards retreated, and Israeli military helicopters attempted to disperse the crowds by firing from the air. Chef José Andrés, who leads the World Food Kitchen, responded by tweeting, "The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has left Palestinians without food. The people that created it are selfish. And now because people are really hungry, just stormed the distribution place damaging the fence. It seems a helicopter began shooting…."

Even more concerning were reports of Palestinians being arrested as they attempted to obtain food. At one location, a reporter was told that an elderly man was detained and taken away when he was unable to provide information about a relative. The more that Palestinians see the food centers as simply traps at which they might be arrested, the more they will avoid them. This is one of the main criticisms of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Its goal is less to provide food and more to provide a means of extending Israeli control of the population. To the extent that any food is provided at all, it is mostly for public relations purposes. The Israeli and American governments can claim that food is being provided and that concerns about starvation are being addressed. While, in reality, very little food is reaching a small segment of the population and Israel is simply extending its security reach. This weaponization of food aid is contrary to all humanitarian principles. Emphasizing the close connection between the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and Israeli occupation authorities was the fact that communications about GHF activities largely originated from COGAT, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, which is a part of the Israeli Defense Ministry. The suggestion that the GHF is simply an Israeli Defense Ministry operation appears even more likely.

It is very clear that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is going to fail as a food assistance program. It operates almost entirely the opposite of how a food assistance operation normally acts. For instance, traditional aid organizations strive to avoid attracting large crowds because large crowds create crowd control difficulties. Therefore, they create many small centers that attract small groups. This has the added benefit of being closer to the population that needs the aid. GHF's plan is exactly the opposite. It has few locations that are far from the population. The centers attract large crowds and the foreseeable crowd control issues predictably occurred. Instead of being centers for life-saving assistance, the GHF locations are places which require arduous travel to reach and then have the risk of arrest, injury, or even death. None of this makes sense unless you understand that the goal is not food distribution, but rather Israeli security objectives. As is so often the case, Israel's security concerns — real or imagined — supersede the humanitarian needs of Palestinians.

I have not written previously about Ms. Rachel, the YouTube personality focused on children. Frankly, until recently I had not even heard of her and I have still not watched one of her videos. However, I have noticed that she has been attacked simply for humanizing Palestinian children. To her credit, she has not backed down. Her willingness to weather the criticism and maintain her stance is admirable. Therefore, I am going to end today's post by quoting one of her recent Instagram posts:

Leaders -

Be so ashamed of your silence.

Be so ashamed that you've seen the images & videos we've seen & they haven't moved you to do the right thing.

Be so ashamed that you normally speak out for children & human rights, but won't now because they are Palestinian.

Be so ashamed that you don't see children like my friend Rahaf like you see other children.

Be so ashamed of your Anti-Palestinian racism.

The Palestinian people in Gaza, including children, are starving. The U.S.-Israel sham Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will not prevent hunger. Instead, it will provide a fig leaf for PR purposes while Israel extends its security controls, using food and starvation as weapons. We must demand more.