💣 Humanitarian Betrayal: UN, Aid Officials Meet Quietly with US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Aid Group Accused of Running 'Laboratory of Cruelty'
In stunning reversal, top UN & NGO officials secretly engage with Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, said to violate humanitarian principles & endangering civilians. MSF demands its immediate dismantling
Senior international aid officials have met with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and discussed collaborating with the US- and Israeli-backed group – widely condemned for militarised food distributions that have led Israel to kill hundreds of Palestinians. The New Humanitarian obtained a read-out of the confidential meeting emailed on 7 August to the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) – the highest-level coordination forum in the international humanitarian system, composed of UN agencies and major NGOs. The read-out was co-signed by Joyce Msuya, the second-most senior official at the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The officials’ willingness to pursue cooperation marks a significant shift in position for aid groups and the UN, whose relief chief warned in May that the GHF model exposes thousands of people to harm, and sets an “unacceptable precedent” for aid delivery around the world as it violates core humanitarian principles. US news website Axios reported that the meeting took place on Wednesday (6 August) afternoon at the US mission to the UN in New York. It took place under the Chatham House Rule, meaning participants could not be quoted publicly. Axios, which did not publish on the email read-out, reported that no phones were allowed and participants had to commit to be respectful and polite. The meeting comes days after UN experts called for the dismantling of the GHF, describing it as a “disturbing example” of humanitarian aid being exploited for military and geopolitical agendas in violation of international law, while rights groups have labelled Israeli killings at distribution sites as war crimes. GHF began operations in May and has become Israel’s preferred aid delivery mechanism in Gaza, allowing it to bypass the established UN-led system, which Israeli officials accuse of enabling Hamas to divert aid – an accusation disputed by relief groups and US assessments. GHF operates four distribution sites — down from 400 under the UN-led system — staffed by armed US security contractors and monitored by Israeli forces. Massive crowds, funnelled through caged corridors, often at night, have repeatedly been fired on by Israeli soldiers. The head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) called the distribution scheme a “sadistic death trap”. GHF operations have been widely rejected by the global humanitarian community, yet the meeting was described in the email as “constructive” and “open”, with participants expressing a sense that “we could and should operate in parallel, complementary ways, each doing what we can”. The meeting was organised by the US ambassador to the UN, Dorothy Shea, and was attended by GHF executive chairman Johnnie Moore, alongside several US diplomats and officials from the World Food Programme, UNICEF, the UN’s migration agency (IOM), OCHA, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and InterAction. Participants agreed not to comment publicly. The read-out states that several concerns were raised about the GHF model based on humanitarian principles, but participants acknowledged that humanitarian need on the ground was far outpacing the response and that the crisis required “all-hands-on-deck” - The New Humanitarian
Prior to Wednesday's meeting, UN Secretary-General António Guterres had instructed senior UN officials not to engage with the GHF, according to the sources cited by Axios, which originally broke the story of the secret meeting. It also reported that Trump loyalist and pro-Israeli activist Morgan Ortagus, A Trump envoy for the Middle East and a former State Department spokesperson, participated alongside GHF chair Johnnie Moore.
What’s remarkable is that the UN and its aid agencies have argued strenuously that the GHF doesn't adhere to the humanitarian principle of neutrality, and they warned that its operations are endangering Palestinian civilians who must cross Israeli military lines to reach the GHF aid centers. Not to be outdone, the GHF has accused the UN of failing to distribute aid properly and claimed that many Palestinians have been killed in stampedes during UN-led aid delivery because of disorder and logistical failures, Axios reported.
Just yesterday, the highly-respected Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the GHF-run food distributions in Gaza, Palestine, have become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, not humanitarian aid. A new MSF report documents the horrors witnessed by MSF staff at two clinics that regularly received mass influxes of casualties following violence at sites run by the GHF. MSF callsed for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme and the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism. Raquel Ayora, MSF General Director said: “The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty. This must stop now.”
My hot-take commentary….
A Stunning U-Turn at the UN: Aid Principles for Sale?
The revelation that top UN and NGO officials—who until recently fiercely criticized the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—quietly met with its leadership in New York and expressed interest in “collaborating” is nothing short of stunning. Just months ago, the UN’s Emergency Relief Chief called the US-Israeli-backed GHF a dangerous and unacceptable precedent—not only for Gaza, but for humanitarian operations globally. And at the ZEG Storytelling Festival in Georgia, at a panel which I moderated, seasoned humanitarian experts denounced GHF as a blatant politicization and weaponization of aid.
I’ve participated in aid deliveries for UNICEF in some of the most challenging environments on earth, including in Gaza. Yes, aid distribution is complex—but it’s not rocket science. What I’ve witnessed from GHF’s operations is sheer incompetence, a media-savvy illusion of efficiency masking a fundamental unfitness for the task. That UN officials—including from UNICEF—are now entertaining alignment with such a body is both disheartening and dangerous.
Let’s be clear: this about-face likely stems from pressure—financial and political—by the Trump administration, which has slashed support for multiple humanitarian agencies. But funding concerns are no excuse for selling out core humanitarian principles. This is how dangerous precedents are normalized, and how aid becomes yet another tool of geopolitical manipulation.
The hypocrisy is staggering—and as a former UN insider, I find this betrayal both personal and deeply troubling.
The GHF-run food distributions in Gaza have become sites of orchestrated killing and dehumanisation, not humanitarian aid - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Aug. 7, 2025
“The Israeli-designed distribution modality is not the answer….It sets an unacceptable precedent for aid delivery not just in the OPT, but around the world..”
— UN Emergency Relief Chief Tom Fletcher in a May 2024 briefing to the UN Security Council
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Vladimir Putin may have used his meeting with US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to propose a long-range strikes moratorium, which would allow Russia to stockpile long-range drones and missiles and renew devastating large-scale strikes against Ukraine after the moratorium expires. A strikes moratorium will also handicap Ukraine's ability to continue its long-range strike campaign aimed at attriting the Russian defense industrial base and wartime economy. Russia has significantly scaled up its drone and missile production in 2025, allowing Russia to rapidly increase the size of its strike packages that it launches against Ukraine. Any agreement less than a full and long-term cessation in long-range strikes against civilian infrastructure will pose a great threat to Ukraine's civilian population and infrastructure upon the expiration of the agreement and resumption of long-range Russian strikes - ISW
Viktoriia Roshchyna, the Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian captivity last year, has been buried in Kyiv, in a ceremony attended by relatives and colleagues who paid tribute to her singular professional courage and the importance of her work. Roshchyna was reporting on Russia’s systematic policy of extrajudicial detention and torture in occupied parts of Ukraine, before falling victim to it herself. She died at the age of 27 last year in murky circumstances, after more than a year in Russian captivity. Her body was returned earlier this year with some of the internal organs missing. On Friday, an Orthodox church service at the golden-domed St Michael’s Cathedral in central Kyiv was followed by speeches on Maidan, the city’s central square. Mourners included Roshchyna’s editors and journalistic colleagues, diplomats, MPs and members of the public who came to pay their respects. She was later buried at the Baikove cemetery. Roshchyna was taken captive briefly in Russian-controlled territory in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion in spring 2022, but was subsequently released. However, she continued to travel to occupied areas to bring back stories of life under Russian control, and was taken captive again in August 2023. Roshchyna’s death in captivity was investigated by the Viktoriia Project, a consortium including the Guardian, Ukrainska Pravda and other reporting partners, earlier this year. For months after her disappearance, there was no news of Roshchyna, who was held, like many Ukrainian detainees, without contact with the outside world. It was only in May 2024 that Russian authorities admitted, in a letter to her father, that she was being held in captivity. Roshchyna was last seen alive on 8 September 2024, and there were rumours she was due to be included in a prisoner exchange. Ukrainian investigators are still working to establish exactly where and how she died. Sources close to the official Ukrainian investigation disclosed to the Viktoriia Project that examination of Roshchyna’s body after its repatriation earlier this year showed the hyoid bone in her neck was broken, damage which can occur during strangulation. The body was also returned with the brain, eyes and larynx removed - Guardian
A shadowy Washington lobbying firm with links to the previous Trump administration has signed an agreement worth $3 million a year with Myanmar's Ministry of Information to help the long-time military-ruled country rebuild relations with the United States. According to documents submitted under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the DCI Group signed the agreement with the ministry on July 31, the day Myanmar's military nominally transferred power to a civilian-led interim government ahead of a planned election. Myanmar's leadership under military chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a 2021 coup. The formation of an interim government signals no change to the status quo in Myanmar, with Min Aung Hlaing holding on to all major levers of power as acting president while retaining his position as chief of the armed forces. He has appeared eager to engage with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration after years of isolation. When Trump threatened new tariffs on Myanmar's U.S.-bound exports this month as part of his global trade offensive, he did so in a signed letter addressed personally to Min Aung Hlaing. According to the FARA filing, the DCI Group "shall provide public affairs services to (the) client with respect to rebuilding relations between the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and the United States, with a focus on trade, natural resources, and humanitarian relief." The filing was signed on August 1 by DCI managing partner Justin Peterson, who served in the previous Trump administration, and another managing partner, Brian McCabe. Reuters reported last year that the FBI has been investigating the DCI Group over its alleged role in a hack-and-leak operation that targeted hundreds of its client Exxon Mobil's biggest critics.
A couple has been detained for abandoning their 10-year-old son to catch their flight at Barcelona airport. The child had problems with his documentation that prevented him from boarding a plane at the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport in Barcelona, so his parents boarded with their younger child and called relatives to pick the 10-year-old up. Local police were called and halted the flight. The couple was escorted off the plane and brought to the police station, where the child had been taken for safety. According to a video on TikTok from an air coordinator who witnessed the event, the boy was traveling with a Spanish passport because the passport from his country of origin had expired. He was missing the required visa and thus could not board the plane. The Daily Beast has reached out to Guardia Civil and local authorities for comment.
The journals….
