The United States says it has approved $30m in direct funding for the controversial Israel-backed group delivering aid in Gaza, despite growing concern over a series of deadly attacks on Palestinian aid seekers near its distribution hubs in the besieged territory.
“We call on other countries to also support the GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and its critical work,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told reporters on Thursday.
The GHF, backed by the US and Israel, has been a source of widespread criticism since its establishment in May. The organisation was set up amid growing pressure on Israel to ease its months-long total blockade on humanitarian aid entering the Strip. The blockade had pushed most of Gaza’s population to the brink of starvation.
International aid groups and the United Nations have refused to work with the GHF, saying it violates basic humanitarian principles by coordinating delivery with Israeli troops backed by privately hired and armed US security personnel.
Video clips have emerged showing Palestinians being shot at while trying to collect food aid.
At least 549 Palestinians have been killed while waiting for food aid distributed at GHF sites, the Gaza Government Media Office said on Thursday. The GHF, which is officially a private group, has denied that deadly incidents have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.
The GHF’s interim executive director, John Acree, welcomed the US contribution and said it was “time for unity and collaboration”.
“We look forward to other aid and humanitarian organizations joining us so we can feed even more Gazans, together,” he said in a statement.
Asked about the criticism of the operation, Pigott said the group has distributed 46 million meals so far, which is “absolutely incredible” and “should be applauded”.
The financial support to the GHF is part of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “pursuit of peace in the region”, he said.
‘Nothing but death’
A witness who has tried unsuccessfully to receive aid from the distribution sites on several occasions described the nightmarish conditions he faced when attempting to reach the hubs.
Atar Riyad, a father of eight originally from Beit Hanoon who has been displaced to Gaza City, told Al Jazeera he had travelled towards the distribution centres near the so-called Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza several times. Thousands of hungry Palestinians would gather near the sites early in the morning, Riyad said.
He said that on one occasion, he saw trucks running over aid seekers. On another, he saw the bodies of young people who appeared to have been shot.
“We went to only find death in front of us. There was nothing but death,” he said.
Riyad said his best friend and neighbours were among those who had been killed at the distribution centres. “All died as they tried to get food to feed their families,” he said.
Kate Mackintosh, executive director of the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, told Al Jazeera that GHF workers could bear criminal liability for the killings of aid seekers near the group’s distribution points.
“It’s very unclear why these people are being targeted and killed, but I think it’s pretty clear that these are unarmed civilians who are desperately trying to get food for their families,” she said.
“Firing upon people in that situation prima facie is a war crime.”
She said that people working for the GHF would “have to think about the extent to which they could be complicit in those crimes”.
“If they’re aware that this is going to happen – or even in some jurisdictions they’re aware of the substantial risk of this happening, which it seems they must be … they could be held criminally liable for participating in those crimes.”
Attacks on aid seekers continue
At least 47 people were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Friday, according to medical sources, including several aid seekers waiting near a distribution site in southern Gaza.
A source at the Kuwait field hospital said at least six people were killed others were injured after Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians seeking aid near a GHF distribution centre north of Rafah.
In a separate attack on Friday, at least 10 people were killed and 10 were injured in an Israeli drone strike on a group of people near Sha’ban Al Rayas in the eastern Al Tuffah area of Gaza City.
Two people were killed in an Israeli bombardment that targeted a tent housing displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, a medical source told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, demolition operations continue. An Al Jazeera correspondent reported that the Israeli army carried out massive demolition operations of residential buildings in the eastern areas of Gaza City.
