TEL AVIV — The new executive chairman for the controversial American-backed humanitarian organization distributing aid in the Gaza Strip refused to reveal the donors who are financing the agency, though he did tell NBC News that to his knowledge the group is not funded by the Israeli government.
Johnnie Moore, an evangelical Christian and former PR consultant who advised President Donald Trump during his first term, was appointed executive chairman of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) last week as the organization reeled from the resignation of his predecessor. It has also faced criticism from the United Nations and aid groups for a lack of independence from Israel, which backs the organization along with the U.S.
Since it started operating late last month, the group has set up aid distribution sites in Gaza in response to international pressure over serious malnutrition in Gaza, where Israel recently lifted an 11-week complete blockade on food, aid and medical supplies entering the enclave.
But regular bouts of deadly violence in and around those sites has also brought increasing scrutiny on the GHF’s source of funding and the degree of autonomy it has from Israel.
In an exclusive interview last week, Moore said it was “a private foundation.”
“Like lots of private foundations, you know, it doesn’t disclose its donors,” he said. “Anything that we do and anything that we say publicly is going to distract from the mission, and we have one mission, just one mission, which is to feed Gazans.”
Pressed on accusations that Israel was financing and controlling the organization, Moore said that “based upon what I know, this is an independent initiative that is not funded by the Israeli government.”
Other questions have also swirled around the GHF, even before it launched four aid distribution points in southern and central Gaza.
A day before it began operations in the strip, Moore’s predecessor Jake Wood resigned, saying in a letter published by Reuters that continuing to work with the group would compromise his “neutrality, impartiality and independence.”
United Nations agencies and major aid groups that previously ran hundreds of community kitchens and bakeries in the enclave have also refused to cooperate with it, saying it violates humanitarian principles by allowing Israel to decide who receives aid, forces widespread displacement in Gaza, and concentrates distribution in areas that may not be accessible to everyone.
Setting up so few sites for food distribution meant crowd control problems were inevitable, according to Ciaran Donnelly, the senior vice president for international programs at the International Rescue Committee, which ran major relief operations in Gaza. “No aid organization would recommend doing it that way,” he said.
Inside Israel, as well, critics have questioned its independence. Last month in front of Israel’s legislature, opposition leader Yair Lapid, without providing evidence, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of funding the GHF through foreign shell companies. And last week, citing unnamed public officials, Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, reported that the Israeli government had sent hundreds of millions of shekels to the group.
Israel’s government has repeatedly denied it funds the GHF.
Any organization “being used by occupying powers” would not be able to carry out its task according to the humanitarian principles of impartiality and independence, said Philip Grant, the executive director of TRIAL International, a Geneva-based nongovernmental organization that advocates for victims of war crimes.
TRIAL International has called on the Swiss government to investigate GHF, whose only registered presence outside the U.S. is in Geneva.
While the GHF has said it is working to open new sites, including in northern Gaza, no such distribution points have opened yet, forcing some Palestinians with advanced injuries and disabilities to walk long distances for aid — often through dangerous areas and extreme heat.
Such onerous requirements for something as basic as food could amount to war crimes, Grant said, and could even lead to accusations that organizations like GHF are complicit.
“This operation comes with a huge risk in terms of violations of the Geneva Conventions,” Grant said. “Especially the forced displacement of populations, which, if carried out, would be a participation in the war crime of enforced displacement of civilian population.”
Palestinian health officials say more than 55,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign on Oct. 7, 2023, the day that Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 200 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in shootings near GHF aid sites, Dr. Munir al-Barsh, the director-general of the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave, said in a statement Wednesday. Israel’s military has acknowledged firing warning shots on several occasions at people who it says approached its forces near the sites in a suspicious manner.
The GHF said in a statement Wednesday that it had provided 2.5 million meals to Palestinians in Gaza on that day alone — its biggest day yet — for a total of more than 16 million in its more than two weeks of operation.
But it said only three out of its four aid points — all of which rely on heavily armed former American military contractors and nearby Israeli military personnel for security — were open.
Calling criticism about the paucity of its operational aid sites “absurd,” Moore said the GHF had opened four sites that didn’t exist before and it was working “very, very actively” to open aid distribution sites in the north, an area of intense combat that is currently not serviced by the group.
Moore was unsparing in his criticism of the U.N., whose aid effort the GHF is trying to replace.
“I don’t think anybody could deny it with their own eyes when they see people with guns sitting on the top of U.N. trucks,” he said. “I think there are plenty of U.N. people that they may not be inclined to say it now, but I think it’s quite clear this has happened plenty of times.”
Urging critics to look past their doubts and embrace a mission that Moore said has never been successfully accomplished before in the Gaza Strip, he said, “Everyone in the world has every reason in the world to be skeptical of initiatives like our initiative.”
“What I want the world to know is that our mission is really, really clear: It’s to feed Gazans. That’s why I’m doing it, and none of us have any interest in getting involved in the internal conflicts in this country.”
