More than 500 people have reportedly been killed seeking aid in Gaza in the past month
But its rollout has been chaotic, with Israeli forces killing hundreds of people near distribution centers policed by private military contractors and Israeli soldiers, resignations by senior leadership who have said the humanitarian organization’s mission was “politicized”, and reports of close ties and collaboration with the Israeli government.
Insiders said that the application for the grant was rushed through the state department unusually quickly, especially for a first-time applicant that should undergo an audit to receive USAID funding.
“It was pushed through over the technical and ethical objections of career staff,” a source told the Guardian.
The state department’s decision to issue the grant was first reported by Reuters.
The state department refused to confirm or deny the reports. “We are not going to comment on internal deliberations,” a state department spokesperson told the Guardian. “We are constantly looking for creative solutions to get aid into Gaza without it being looted by Hamas, and GHF stepped up.”
Sources told Reuters that GHF may be given $30m each month to help fund its operating costs in Gaza. The grants appeared to be rushed through USAID, which is in the process of being rolled into the state department in a major shakeup of US aid disbursement abroad.
In a letter sent on Monday to GHF and the affiliated Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, advocates from 15 international human rights organizations warned that private contractors operating in Gaza in collaboration with the Israeli government risk “aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide”.
Top Democrats have also criticized GHF. In a letter to Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, obtained by the Guardian, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren said that support for GHF “marks an alarming departure from the professional humanitarian organizations that have worked on the ground, in Gaza and elsewhere, for decades”.
Andrew Roth is the Guardian’s global affairs correspondent based in Washington, DC. He covers the state department and US foreign policy.
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