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Just one day before the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began officially operating inside the Gaza Strip, its executive director, Jake Wood, resigned. The text of his resignation statement confirmed what many already suspected: the organization is not a humanitarian endeavor but the latest scam by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to control the Gaza Strip after 600 days of war and genocide.
“It is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence,” Wood said in the statement.
This raises the question: why had that realization become “clear” to Wood, even though the aid operation was not yet in effect? The rest of the statement offers some explanation, as it suggests that the American contractor may not have known the extent of the Israeli ploy until later. But he knew that a disaster was unfolding — the kind that would surely require investigation and, possibly, accountability.
In fact, a probe by Swiss authorities had already begun. The US news network, CBS, looked into the matter and reported last Thursday that the foundation originally applied for registration in Geneva on Jan. 31 and was officially registered on Feb. 12. However, Swiss authorities quickly began noticing violations, including that the Swiss branch of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is “currently not fulfilling various legal obligations.”
In its original application, the foundation stated that it “pursues exclusively charitable philanthropic objectives for the benefit of people in need.” Strangely, the entity that promised to provide “material, psychological or health” services to famine-stricken Gazans, found it necessary to employ 300 “heavily armed” American contractors, with “as much ammunition as they can carry,” CBS reported.
The promise of “psychological” support was the most ironic, as desperate Gazans were last week corralled into cages in extremely high temperatures, only to be given tiny amounts of food that, according to Ramy Abdu, head of the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, were stolen from a US-based charitable organization known as Rahma Worldwide.
Aid groups operating in Gaza were fully aware that the secretive Israeli-US scheme was predicated on bad intentions
Ramzy Baroud
Amid several days of chaos and violence in Gaza, where at least 49 Palestinians were killed and more than 300 wounded as they sought aid and comfort, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that opposition leaders argue that the funds for the operation are coming directly from Israel. Prominent politician and Knesset member Avigdor Lieberman claimed that the money, estimated by the Washington Post to be $100 million, “is coming from the Mossad and the Defense Ministry.”
But why would Israel go to all this trouble when it could, at no financial cost, simply allow the massive shipments of aid that are reportedly rotting on the Egyptian side of the border to enter Gaza and stave off the threat of famine?
In Netanyahu's mind, the aid mechanism is part of the war. In a video message, he last month described the new aid distribution points, to be manned jointly by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the Israeli army, as “parallel to the enormous pressure” Israel is putting on the Palestinians — as exemplified by Israel's “massive (military) entrance (into Gaza)” — with the aim of “taking control of all of Gaza.”
In Netanyahu’s own words, all this — the military-arranged aid and ongoing genocide — is “the war and victory plan.”
Of course, Palestinian and international aid groups operating in Gaza, including UN-linked apparatuses, were fully aware that the secretive Israeli-US scheme was predicated on bad intentions. This is why they wanted nothing to do with it.
In Israel’s thinking, any aid mechanism that would sustain the status quo that existed prior to Oct. 7, 2023, would be equivalent to an admission of defeat. This is why Israel labored to associate the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, with Hamas. This included the launching of a virulent campaign against UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other top officials and rapporteurs. In July last year, the Israeli Knesset went as far as to designate UNRWA a “terrorist organization.”
Still, it may seem to be a contradiction that the likes of extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich would agree to such an “aid” scheme just days after declaring that Israel’s intention is to “entirely destroy” Gaza. However, there is no contradiction. Having failed to conquer Gaza through military force, Israel is trying to use this scheme to capitalize on the famine it has deliberately engineered over the course of months.
Luring people to “distribution points,” the Israeli army is trying to concentrate the population of Gaza in areas that can be easily controlled through leveraging food, with the ultimate aim of pushing Palestinians out, in the words of Smotrich, “in great numbers to third countries.”
The latest scheme is likely to fail, of course, like many other such stratagems in the last 600 days. However, the inhumane and degrading treatment of Palestinians further illustrates Israel’s rejection of the growing international push to end the genocide.
For Israel to stop scheming, the international community must translate its strong words into strong action and hold not just Israel but also its citizens involved in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and other ploys accountable for being part of the ongoing war crimes in Gaza.
*Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappe, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out.” His other books include “My Father was a Freedom Fighter” and “The Last Earth.” He is a nonresident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs. His website is . X: @RamzyBaroud