The world has two views about the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

There is the view of the United Nations Secretary-General and many of its agencies, of dozens of non UN aid organisations and of many governments including the UK, that GHF aid delivery measures are inhumane and causing the people of Gaza immense problems including risking being killed when trying to get food.

And then there is the view of the United States and Israel, that GHF is brilliant but the subject of an international conspiracy of lies and misinformation.

Which should we believe? What is the evidence?

The view of some Non-Governmental Organisations and Governments

First let’s examine the information put forward by the two sides. This is not easy because Israel has blocked media reporters from entering Gaza. This in itself is an indication of guilt. If they were acting legally they would want the world to know about it, not hide their crimes behind closed doors. However some NGOs have staff in Gaza who have been able to report what they see and what is happening to them.

The International Crisis Group writes:

Since the GHF began operations, dozens of Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points have been killed, many by Israel, and scores of others have been wounded…The world, it seems, is witnessing an experiment: an attempt to indefinitely maintain Gaza’s population below the famine threshold while turning food into a weapon of war. With Gaza’s local food production capacity nearly destroyed, controlling the crossings now means controlling survival itself. Israeli restrictions limited the World Food Programme (WFP) to delivering fewer than 1,600 calories per person daily, far below its 2,100-calorie target, from July 2024 until the January 2025 ceasefire. The GHF promises to bring in marginally more, with 1,750 calories, but only to the “fortified hubs”, which Palestinians must cross battlefields to reach. If the resulting bedlam thwarts even this insufficient goal, Gaza will edge toward the mass death that the IPC’s Famine Review Committee warned would follow if the GHF cannot deliver adequate aid.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation writes:

As of July 15 [2025], Israeli forces have killed nearly 700 Palestinians and injured hundreds more at or near GHF distribution points. Witnesses say people were fired on from drones, tanks, and helicopters while waiting for food.

The UK spokesman said at the UN Security Council:

Israel’s aid delivery measures are inhumane. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s operations which are supposed to be saving lives, are themselves leading to mass casualties. Starving people who are desperate to feed their families are told food awaits them.

But over 500 have reportedly been killed trying to access it. And meanwhile, UNICEF reports that more than 5000 children between the age of six months and five years old were admitted for acute malnutrition in May alone.

It is truly appalling.

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), issued a statement on 22 July saying:

Gaza has become hell on earth and no place is safe. In his statement, the Commissioner-General said that no one is spared. Caretakers, including UNRWA colleagues in Gaza, are also in need of care now.

Doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them UNRWA staff, are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties, reporting atrocities or alleviating some of the suffering.

Meanwhile, seeking food has become as deadly as the bombardments. More than a thousand starving people have been reported killed since the end of May. The so-called DHF distribution schemes is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they’re given a license to kill. It’s a massive hunt of people in total impunity.

This cannot be our new norm. Humanitarian assistance is not the job of mercenaries. The UN and its humanitarian partners have the expertise, the experience, and available resources to provide safe, dignified, and at-scale assistance. We have proven it time and again during the last ceasefire. He finally called for an end to this abomination.

The United Nations News website reported on 21 July 2025:

[T]he UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, relayed desperate testimonies from its colleagues who are…struggling to survive in the war-torn enclave.

“We’re in the death phase,” one UNRWA worker said. “Everything around people at the moment is death, whether it’s bombs or strikes, children wasting away in front of their eyes from malnourishment, from dehydration, and dying.” Doctors and nurses who continue to work in the UN agency’s clinics and medical centres “are watching children disappear and die in front of their eyes, and there’s absolutely nothing that they can do about it,” the worker continued.

The development comes after desperate Gazans seeking aid came under fire at the weekend “from Israeli tanks, snipers and other gunfire”, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP). In a detailed statement after the incident on Sunday 20 July, it explained that a 25-truck lorry convoy crossed the Zikim border point in northern Gaza “destined for starving communities”. Shortly after passing the final checkpoint after the Zikim crossing point, the convoy encountered large crowds of civilians waiting to access food supplies. This was when the shooting began, leaving “countless” Gazans dead, WFP said, echoing reports by the health authorities.

Condemning the incident, WFP noted that the victims “were simply trying to access food to feed themselves and their families on the brink of starvation”. Speaking later on Monday in a briefing to journalists in New York, WFP’s director of emergencies Ross Smith called the incident “one of the greatest tragedies we’ve seen for our operations in Gaza and elsewhere while we’re trying to work.”

The UN agency said furthermore that the violence had happened “despite assurances from Israeli authorities that humanitarian operational conditions would improve; including that armed forces will not be present nor engage at any stage along humanitarian convoy routes.” Without such fundamental guarantees, it will not be possible to continue providing life-saving support across the Gaza Strip, WFP said, its reaction coming a day after a reported 36 people seeking aid were reportedly killed close to a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation hub run by the Israeli and US authorities in the south of the Strip.

This is just a small sample of reports of Gazan people starving to death, dying from inadequate water, medicine or sanitation.

And how does Israel respond to such reports?

On 23 July 2025, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer answered media questions about Gaza humanitarian aid. You can listen to an audio recording of his words and read a transcription here. To summarise, he said:

In Gaza today, there is no famine caused by Israel. There is, however, a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas. Now, too often, the full story is not being told. This suffering exists because Hamas has created it. The suffering exists because Hamas has made it so…There are more than 700 A-trucks…for the United Nations to pick up inside of Gaza. That means they’ve gone through security and they are waiting on the Gazan side of the border. Now, this is a bottleneck which has been caused by the United Nations.

This idea of famine and starvation has been thrown at us consistently on a weekly basis for the last two years now. It has never come to far pass. So these are false warnings which come from these aid organizations. And I also would say that where there is hunger in Gaza, it is hunger orchestrated by Hamas. This is very clearly their tactic and it is working… Hamas are restricting food from their own people and media, and I think this is true, across too many outlets are not reporting.

The Israeli government website reported on 11 June 2025 that:

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) continued its operations today to provide vital food aid for the people in Gaza. Below is an update on today’s operations:

• SDS1 (Tal Sultan) distributed 22 truckloads of food today, totaling 21,120 boxes providing approximately 1,219,680 meals.
• SDS2 (Saudi Neighborhood) distributed 14 truckloads of food today, totaling 13,400 boxes providing approximately 776,160 meals.
• SDS4 (Wadi Gaza) distributed 9 truckloads of food today, totaling 8,640 boxes providing approximately 498,960 meals.
• This brings the total number of meals distributed to-date to approximately 16,041,982 via roughly 271,200 boxes.

Conclusion: Israel admits the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is staving Gaza Palestinians to death

The total of the above truckloads of food for that day is 45. On 23 May 2025 Aljazeera reported that 93 truckloads is equivalent to about 20% of Gaza’s daily needs, meaning that Israel is admitting that Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is only delivering about 10% of the daily food the people of Gaza need.

Swiss government orders end to GHF in Geneva

On July 2 the Swiss interior ministry confirmed that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is to be dissolved. Swiss Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ASF) ordered the formal dissolution of the Geneva-based foundation. This was confirmed by the interior ministry. To the ASF, the GHF is no longer relevant, as it no longer has a Swiss representative or address in Geneva, and has done nothing to remedy the situation.

More information (in French).