The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an aid organisation in Gaza backed by Israel and the United States and run largely by American contractors, announced on Monday that it was formally ending its mission. The group, created earlier this year at the height of famine warnings in Gaza, had promoted itself as an innovative alternative to the United Nations-led humanitarian system. Its closure, however, comes after months of controversy, mounting criticism from international agencies and repeated outbreaks of deadly violence at its distribution sites.
John Acree, GHF’s executive director, said the organisation had fulfilled its purpose and that the creation of the new US-led Civil–Military Coordination Centre (CMCC) under the Trump administration’s 20-point Israel–Hamas ceasefire framework had rendered the foundation’s continued involvement unnecessary. “GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need, prove that a new approach could succeed where others had failed, and ultimately hand off that success to the broader international community,” Acree said. “GHF believes that moment has now arrived.”
The foundation launched as Gaza faced a deepening humanitarian emergency driven by severe Israeli restrictions on aid operations. Established with American funding but with heavy involvement from Israeli officials and business figures connected to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, GHF aimed to bypass the United Nations entirely. Israel envisioned the foundation ultimately replacing UN agencies as the sole provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
Central to GHF’s model was the effort to exclude Hamas from access to or control over aid. To prevent diversion, the organisation distributed food at militarised hubs located away from population centres. GHF asserted that its system demonstrated “a better way to deliver aid to Gazans”, claiming it was the only operation that reliably provided free meals at scale without loss or looting. According to the foundation, it delivered more than 187 million free meals during its four and a half months of operation and distributed over 1.1 million packets of ready-to-use supplementary food for malnourished children. It also reported that none of its aid convoys were looted.
GHF leadership repeatedly framed the project as proof of what “American-led solutions and compassion” could achieve, thanking the Trump administration for its early backing.
However, the initiative was widely condemned within the international humanitarian sector. Major aid organisations refused to cooperate with GHF, citing its opaque structure, political entanglements and failure to meet established humanitarian principles. Twenty-eight UN human rights experts called in August for the foundation to be dismantled, describing it as “an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law”. UNRWA’s commissioner-general urged its closure, arguing it delivered “nothing but starvation and gunfire”.
Critics also warned that GHF’s model—requiring civilians to travel long distances through dangerous terrain to reach a small number of distribution sites—departed sharply from the humanitarian norm of bringing aid directly to affected populations. UN officials stressed that unimpeded access for impartial aid workers remained the only legitimate solution.
The distribution hubs themselves became focal points of repeated unrest. Between May and October, the sites saw frequent outbreaks of chaos and lethal violence, involving Israeli soldiers and GHF’s own private security contractors. UN experts reported that Israeli forces and foreign military personnel repeatedly opened “indiscriminate fire” on crowds. Various reports estimated that at least 859 Palestinians were killed around GHF locations, with later UN assessments putting the figure above 1,000. A Red Cross clinic in Rafah recorded 1,874 weapon-wounded patients between May 25 and June 19, most of whom said they were injured while attempting to collect GHF aid. Contractors and video accounts indicated that US guards used live ammunition and stun grenades.
The Israeli military rejected these claims, stating that troops fired only warning shots or responded to immediate threats. Officials insisted Hamas operatives and other gunmen had also fired on crowds. Hamas condemned the foundation, accusing it of causing the deaths and injuries of thousands of Gazans and demanding international accountability.
GHF attributed its closure to the establishment of the CMCC, the partial resumption of UN-led operations following the October ceasefire, and reduced need for its services. Acree said the CMCC and international organisations would adopt and expand GHF’s model. The foundation will remain a registered NGO, keeping itself “ready to reconstitute” should new needs emerge. Nonetheless, reports indicate that GHF had been facing serious financial difficulties and had become marginalised after the ceasefire, as its sites—located in areas under Israeli control—were no longer accessible to most Palestinians.
Reaction to the shutdown has been sharply divided. The US State Department thanked GHF, arguing that its approach prevented Hamas from looting aid and played “a huge role” in bringing about the ceasefire. Hamas, by contrast, welcomed the closure as “a deserved step” for an organisation it accused of engineering starvation and operating as part of Israel’s “security apparatus”.