Scarce, poor in nutrition, and very difficult to cook: The mirage of food aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

Mohamed Nabil Zeidan swears that his seven remaining children — his eldest son, 22, was killed by an Israeli attack months ago — have gone three months without eating bread. This has been the case since almost March 2, when Israel completely banned the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Last week, someone told them that “the Americans” were distributing food. They were referring to the two food distribution sites opened on May 27 in the center and south of the Gaza Strip by a shadowy organization, with unknown funding, but sponsored by Israel and the United States: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Last Sunday, this family walked eight hours to reach the Rafah distribution center in the south. They hadn’t yet reached the second gate, along with “hundreds of thousands of other people,” when the Israeli military “started shooting,” recalls the 46-year-old bricklayer. A terrified crowd separated the mother, along with two of her children, from the father. “Get down on the ground,” the woman shouted to the children. Ahmad, 12, later saw her lying lifeless with her face pressed against the ground. “The tanks were approaching, and a man told me, ‘Run away! They’ve killed your mother!’” he recalls over the phone, with the incessant sound of shelling and the cries of other children in the background.

Since May 27, attacks attributed to the Israeli army have killed around 100 people near or even inside GHF centers, a claim the organization has repeatedly denied in its statements, which describe its distributions as “peaceful” and “incident-free.” In several of these press releases, they attribute these and other allegations against the organization to “inaccurate news” based on “unverified and unsubstantiated sources” and “fabricated and exaggerated narratives in media coverage.” Meanwhile, the United Nations has described GHF activities as “a militarized food distribution mechanism,” which numerous NGOs accuse of serving the aims of a 20-month-long Israeli invasion in which at least 55,000 people have died.

In what is probably the best version of the contents of the cardboard boxes of food this organization claims to be delivering — which was captured in a photograph released by the Israeli army last week — there are four packages of pasta, one of rice, two kilos of flour, two bottles of vegetable oil, and some cans of, for example, tinned tomatoes. There is nothing fresh, no fruit or vegetables. There are no eggs or dairy products, not even powdered ones, no nutritional supplements, no infant formula, and no hygiene products.

These foods are enough, according to the GHF, to feed five to six people for up to four days. The boxes include, according to GHF statements, between 63 and 65 rations that it describes as “meals,” even though they are unprepared food. While Gaza agonizes, with its 2.1 million inhabitants on the brink of famine, the GHF claims that, as of last Friday, 140,640 food boxes have been distributed at its two distribution sites, equivalent to nearly nine million of these “meals” (8,952,142, to be exact).

Humanitarian organizations, experts, and witnesses consulted by EL PAÍS consider these figures implausible. First of all, due to the high number of packages supposedly distributed by this new organization, which exceeds the number managed by U.N. agencies and NGOs with decades of experience distributing food in conflict zones. On its first day of operation, and already amid reports of chaos and starving Palestinians shot while trying to obtain food, the GHF claimed to have distributed 8,000 boxes in a few hours. A U.N. agency can distribute between 500 and 1,000 packages daily, according to a source from the organization.”

Several witnesses also deny that the number of boxes seen at the GHF centers was high. Mohamed Zeidan, whose wife died at the Rafah distribution site, claims to have seen only “six pallets of boxes” there. A U.N. worker with no relation to Zeidan, who spoke to this newspaper on condition of anonymity, cites other testimonies that allude to a similar estimate: “Five pallets of boxes.”

In a statement released Friday on its Facebook page, the GHF asserts, on the contrary, that it is “working to increase the daily quantities [of food],” with the goal “of reaching 4.5 million meals distributed daily.” It then addresses Gazans: “Please be assured that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will continue to ensure the necessary quantities of food for all good residents of Gaza.”

If the quantity of cardboard boxes distributed and the food they contain raises questions, so does the suitability of these foods for a malnourished population like Gaza. The GHF boxes barely include sources of animal protein — except for a few cans of tuna — nor healthy fats, vitamins, or minerals.

There is no infant formula or specific food for children. Nor are there nutritional supplements, even though, since January, humanitarian organizations working under the U.N. umbrella in Gaza have identified more than 16,500 children aged under five with severe acute malnutrition. Around 40% of Gaza’s population is aged under 14.

The flour and rice included in the foundation’s boxes are commercial, not those enriched with iron and B vitamins — such as folic acid, vital for pregnant women — distributed by the U.N. in contexts of malnutrition. The main humanitarian agency in Gaza, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which usually centralizes distributions for other organizations in the U.N. system, distributed these cereals, as well as powdered milk, infant formula, nutritional supplements, more protein-rich foods, and, when possible, fruits and vegetables.

The GHF boxes don’t always contain the same foods, according to witnesses like Zeidan, who describes the contents as much poorer than those depicted in the Israeli army photograph: “Each box contained three kilos of flour, a bag of about 12 crackers, one kilo of semolina [coarse wheat flour], sometimes one kilo of sugar, and one kilo of lentils or chickpeas,” he recalls. “With three kilos of flour, I barely make enough bread to feed my [seven] children for a day. That box isn’t even enough to feed a family of four for a day,” he laments.

The U.N. worker in Gaza claims that some packages only include “tea, sugar, and noodles; others, oil and rice.” According to this aid worker, with extensive experience in humanitarian aid distribution, the GHF’s figures, which include between 60 and 65 rations in each box, “make no sense.”

Unrealistic and insufficient figures

From Ramallah in the West Bank, Bushra Khalidi, advocacy manager for the NGO Oxfam, describes these GHF figures as “a joke” and argues that, even if they are true, the food is barely enough to feed the population of Gaza “for one day.” The GHF distribution centers are also in the southern half of the Gaza Strip, while around “one million people” are in the north, the U.N. worker points out, separated from the southern half by Israeli military corridors that they cannot cross.

The GHF food, he adds, also has a serious drawback: it must be cooked, which requires fire and/or water. Since Israel imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid in March, not a drop of fuel or a gas cylinder has entered Palestinian territory. Wood is practically depleted, and nine out of 10 Gazans have no access to drinking water.

Humanitarian organizations, meanwhile, remain unable to distribute food because the Israeli government continues to block its entry into Gaza and because fear of looting by the starving population prevents them from distributing the little that does arrive. This situation has not changed significantly since May 18, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he would allow limited food into the Gaza Strip to appease U.S. criticism.

Israel has presented the GHF as an alternative to the United Nations system and NGOs, who have refused to collaborate with this foundation, which violates the humanitarian principles of independence — it is associated with an invading army — and impartiality, and does not even ensure the traceability of the food it delivers.

In contrast, humanitarian organizations distribute aid following a series of steps to ensure it reaches those in need. First, these organizations identify the beneficiaries and the profile of the family unit — for example, if there are infants who need formula milk — before beginning the distribution of food or hygiene products, blankets, clothing, and materials for shelter such as tents.

Once identified, priority is given to the most vulnerable beneficiaries — children, the disabled, the elderly, and female heads of household — and they are summoned “with a phone call or text message” to one of the 400 distribution points available to the United Nations system throughout Gaza, “usually a five- or 10-minute walk from their homes,” explains the U.N. aid worker. The GHF has only two operational centers, which, moreover, are not open every day due to the chaos that prevails there.

Once at the NGO or U.N. distribution points, the beneficiary shows an ID and signs for the collection of aid. The boxes usually have a label attached to the side detailing the contents.

The U.N. official believes that without the GHF complying with this or a similar protocol, the organization’s activities “cannot be defined as a genuine humanitarian distribution, not even of food.”

“Who is the GHF distributing this food to? How are they doing it? Humanitarian distribution doesn’t consist of leaving boxes of food on the ground, only for a crowd of people, whose rule of law prevails, to fight over them,” he says.

A video from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation itself, broadcast by CNN, shows the Rafah distribution site. Dozens of boxes lie piled up on the ground as a crowd runs around trying to grab some food. Some Gazans open the packages, with no one apparently monitoring who takes what or how many boxes are distributed. In several of its statements, the GHF itself has asked Gazans not to open the packages inside the distribution site. In the sky, flashes emitted by a type of machine gun common to the Israeli army, according to an expert cited by the network, break the darkness. Other recordings show people with two boxes, others with torn and open containers, others with bags, and many with empty hands.

Sean Carroll, president of the NGO Anera, which runs community kitchens in the Gaza Strip, argues that even if the GHF figures are accurate, “just as important as the number of meals distributed are the number of people still starving, and also the dangerous and undignified way in which that food is being distributed.”

Criminal gangs

Both Mohamed Zeidan and the U.N. worker, who do not know each other, told EL PAÍS that those receiving these food boxes from the GHF are often not “ordinary Gazans.” Their testimonies and others reported on social media maintain that criminal gangs are hoarding the food with the complicity of Israel and the U.S. mercenary companies that monitor the distribution sites. The U.N. aid worker argues that these criminals then sell the food outside of these centers.

Zeidan recounts how “a thug” held a gun to his 20-year-old daughter’s head to steal some food she had managed to stuff into a bag. The incident occurred inside the “closed military zone” of the GHF site in Rafah.

On Thursday, former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused the Netanyahu government of supplying weapons to criminal gangs in Gaza. The Israeli prime minister’s office has not denied this.

“This is not help. It’s a place of humiliation, death, and insult,” says Zeidan, now a widower. For UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, the GHF sites are “a death trap.”

Julieta Espín, a professor of Near Eastern International Relations at the Complutense University of Madrid, who wrote her thesis on UNRWA, concludes that the establishment of the U.S.-Israeli foundation is not intended to help or feed Gazans. She believes the foundation’s real objective is, in fact, “to put an end to UNRWA and its humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees, which the Israeli government sees as an obstacle to these people settling in other countries and thus [being able to] seize their territory.”

Meanwhile, the destruction of all traces of life in Gaza continues. While Israel defends the GHF as an alternative to U.N. agencies and NGOs, its army continues to raze not only infrastructure and homes, but also the orchards, greenhouses, farms, and fields that allowed the enclave’s population to produce some fresh food.

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