The head of a U.N. inquiry into human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories on Wednesday denounced the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), calling its role in distributing aid in the besieged enclave “outrageous” and warning it is contributing to civilian deaths.
Navi Pillay, chair of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, criticized the foundation’s operations during a news conference, highlighting its close links to the U.S. government and its impact on aid-seeking civilians.
“In every war, siege and starvation surely lead to death,” said Pillay, a former U.N. human rights chief. “But this initiative of what's called a foundation — a private foundation — to supply food is what I see as outrageous, because it involves the United States itself, the government. And it turns out, as we watch daily, that people who go to those centers are being killed as they seek food.”
GHF began distributing aid on May 26, after Israel cut off supply routes into Gaza for over two months, prompting warnings of mass famine. The effort, labeled private and opaque in its funding structure, has drawn criticism from international humanitarian organizations, which declined to cooperate over concerns that the foundation serves Israeli military objectives.
Dozens of Palestinians have reportedly been killed while attempting to access GHF aid points.
Pillay said the commission would investigate the initiative’s underlying purpose and its consequences. “We have to spell out what is the motive of, right now, the killing of people who are coming for humanitarian aid from this so-called foundation — and that lives are being lost just in trying to secure food for their children.”
On Tuesday, Pillay presented the commission’s latest report to the U.N. Human Rights Council. It concluded that Israel has targeted schools, religious and cultural sites in Gaza as part of a “widespread and systematic” attack on the civilian population, accusing Israeli forces of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination.
Israel does not recognize or cooperate with the commission and has long accused it of anti-Israel bias.
The U.N. inquiry was established in May 2021 with an open-ended mandate to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Pillay, 83, previously served as a judge on the International Criminal Court and as president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
