The US State Department has approved $30 million in funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the State Department said, calling on other countries to also support the controversial group delivering aid in Gaza.
“This support is simply the latest iteration of President [Donald] Trump’s and Secretary [Marco] Rubio’s pursuit of peace in the region,” State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott told reporters at a regular news briefing.
The United States has long backed the GHF diplomatically, but this is the first known US government financial contribution to the organisation, which uses private for-profit US military and logistics firms to transport aid into the enclave for distribution at so-called secure sites.
Major aid groups and the United Nations have refused to work with the GHF, saying it violates basic humanitarian principles by coordinating delivery with troops.
The Doctors Without Borders charity called for the relief effort to be halted, saying it was “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”.
In a statement, it said the GHF “is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies”.
It also demanded the scheme be “immediately dismantled”.
In March, Israel started blocking deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza, leading to warnings of famine in the territory widely flattened by Israeli bombing since the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas.
The GHF, backed by armed US contractors with the Israeli troops on the perimeter, began operations at the end of May that have been marked by chaotic scenes, deaths and neutrality concerns .
The Gaza health ministry says that since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near aid centres while seeking scarce supplies.
Since Israel lifted the 11-week aid blockade on Gaza, allowing limited UN deliveries to resume, the United Nations says more than 400 people have been killed seeking aid from both the UN and GHF operations.
Earlier this month, GHF halted aid deliveries for a day as it pressed Israel to boost civilian safety near its distribution sites after dozens of Palestinians seeking aid were killed.
The GHF, which is officially a private group, has denied that deadly incidents have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.
GHF’s executive director Johnnie Moore, an evangelical preacher who was a White House adviser in the first Trump administration, said in a post on X that the group has delivered more than 46 million meals to Gazans since it began its operations in May.
Some US officials opposed giving any US funds to the foundation over concerns about violence near aid distribution sites, the GHF’s inexperience and the involvement of the for-profit American logistics and private military firms, four sources told Reuters earlier this week.
The United States could approve additional monthly grants of $30 million for the GHF, two sources said, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.
In approving the US funding for the GHF, the sources said the State Department exempted the foundation, which has not publicly disclosed its finances, from an audit usually required for groups receiving USAID grants for the first time.
There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies after the nearly two-year military campaign by Israel that has displaced two million people in Gaza.
