[News] ‘Blueprint for Ethnic Cleansing’: NGOs condemn Gaza aid plan

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/05/blueprint-for-ethnic-cleansing-ngos-condemn-gaza-aid-plan/?ml_recipient=155009828767401793&ml_link=155009784574117643&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-05-21&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
‘Blueprint for Ethnic Cleansing’: NGOs condemn Gaza aid plan
Michael Arria
May 20, 2025
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[image: 270425_Beit_Lahia_OSH_0015-1536x1024.jpg]
Palestinians clamor in line to receive a portion of food from a charity
kitchen in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, April 27, 2025. (Photo: Omar
Ashtawy/APA Images)

A group of British human rights organizations is sounding the alarm on the
Trump administration’s plan to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Under the plan, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.-based
organization, would handle the aid, and private military contractors would
secure the distribution sites. The Israeli military would provide
“necessary security.”

An open letter
<https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/leading-aid-and-human-rights-organisations-condemn-gaza-humanitarian-foundation-dangerous-politicised-sham>
from 11 NGOs, including Action For Humanity and Christian Aid, refers to
the plan as a “politicized sham” and a “blueprint for ethnic cleansing.”

“Despite branding itself as ‘independent’ and ‘transparent,’ the Gaza
Humanitarian Foundation would be wholly dependent on Israeli coordination
and operates via Israeli-controlled entry points, primarily the Port of
Ashdod and the Kerem Shalom/Karem Abu Salem crossing,” the letter explains.
“This entrenches and legitimises the very structures of control that are
responsible for cutting Gaza off from food, fuel, and medicine.”

“Limiting aid distribution to restricted collection points would
effectively exclude persons with disabilities and those who are injured and
unable to move easily through the destruction and rubble, violating the
principle of impartial needs-based humanitarian assistance,” it continues.
“Let us be clear: the biggest barrier to humanitarian access in Gaza is not
inefficiency or corruption, it is the deliberate restriction of aid by the
Israeli government. The military siege on Gaza is a form of collective
punishment. The restriction of aid is being used as a weapon of war.”

“Let us be clear: the biggest barrier to humanitarian access in Gaza is not
inefficiency or corruption, it is the deliberate restriction of aid by the
Israeli government. The military siege on Gaza is a form of collective
punishment. The restriction of aid is being used as a weapon of war.”
Letter from NGOs on the U.S.-Israel Gaza aid plan

The plan has also been condemned by the UN’s Office for Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which says the system “contradicts Israel’s
obligations under International Humanitarian Law to allow and facilitate
impartial humanitarian relief for civilians in need.”

“UN involvement would legitimize a military tactic that would have
devastating consequences on the population and would damage the
organization’s reputation in Gaza and the region,” reads a recent document
from the group.

In recent remarks, U.S ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee admitted that the
plan will only feed 60% of Gaza initially and blamed the deadly Israeli
blockade on Hamas.

“You have to start somewhere and the somewhere feeds an enormous level of
the people of Gaza,” said
<https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/09/middleeast/us-gaza-aid-plan-un-rejection-intl>
Huckabee.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is headed by Jake Wood, a U.S. military
veteran who started the disaster relief nonprofit Team Rubicon in response
to the Haiti earthquake in 2010.

“This plan is not perfect, but this plan will be feeding people by the end
of the month, in a scenario where no one has allowed aid in over the course
of the last 10 weeks,” said
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/head-of-controversial-israel-backed-gaza-aid-group-says-plan-isnt-perfect-but-feeds-people/>
Wood in his first interview since starting the foundation.

“Ultimately, the community is going to face a choice. This is going to be
the mechanism by which aid can be distributed in Gaza,” he continued. “Are
you willing to participate? The answer is going to be, you know, pretty
critical to whether or not this ramps up to sufficiently feed 2.2 million
people in a very desperate situation.”

Wood has insisted
<https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/16/middleeast/israel-gaza-humanitarian-foundation-interview-latam-intl>
that the plan would not lead to the further displacement of Palestinians,
but the UN points out
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-08/ty-article/.premium/incompatible-with-humanitarian-principles-un-slams-israels-gaza-aid-distribution-plan/00000196-b054-dce0-abfe-ff7c37b20000?lts=1747755432749>
that it excludes northern Gaza, which could force people to relocate from
the north.

Israeli leaders have also publicly admitted that the aid plan will enable
them to continue their genocidal policies in the region.

In a video posted on social media, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu acknowledged the hunger crisis and said that images of famine
would impair Israel’s ability to achieve its war aims.

“Our best friends in the world, senators that I know as enthusiastic Israel
supporters, who I know for many years, are come to me and telling me, ‘we
give you all the support for a final victory — arms, support on your
maneuvers to destroy Hamas, support at the U.N. Security Council,” said
Netanyahu. “There is one thing we cannot endure — pictures of mass famine.
This is something we are unable to witness. We will not be able to support
you.'”

In the same video, Netanyahu said that Israel would “take control of all
the Gaza Strip” while delivering
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/19/israel-gaza-aid-netanyahu/>“minimal
humanitarian aid: food and medicine only.”

These sentiments were echoed by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-05-19/ty-article/.premium/were-destroying-gaza-netanyahu-smotrich-rush-to-soothe-fears-over-aid-renewal/00000196-e7b4-d93f-a3b6-fff77c780000?lts=1747665230615>,
who held a press conference to assure his base that the aid plan was a
means of continuing the genocide.

“The [aid] that will enter Gaza in the coming days is the tiniest amount,”
he explained
<https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/netanyahu-trump-gaza-aid-genocide-smotrich-ceasefire-hamas?r=iqold&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web>.
A handful of bakeries that will hand out pita bread to people in public
kitchens. People in Gaza will get a pita and a food plate, and that’s it.
Exactly what we are seeing in the videos: people standing in line and
waiting to have someone serve them, with some soup plate.”

“We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total
destruction [which has] no precedent globally,” he continued. And the world
isn’t stopping us. There are pressures. There are those who attack [us];
they are trying to [make us] stop; they are not succeeding.”

NBC recently reported that the Trump administration is working on a plan to
permanently relocate 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya. Sources say
the U.S. government would release billions in funds to Libya that were
previously frozen in exchange for the country participating in the ethnic
cleansing.

Hamas says they are unaware of any such plans.

“Palestinians are very rooted in their homeland, very strongly committed to
the homeland and they are ready to fight up to the end and to sacrifice
anything to defend their land, their homeland, their families, and the
future of their children,” senior Hamas official Basem Naim told
<https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-working-plan-move-1-million-palestinians-libya-rcna207224>
NBC. “[Palestinians] are exclusively the only party who have the right to
decide for the Palestinians, including Gaza and Gazans, what to do and what
not to do.”

This week, Israel cleared nine aid trucks to enter Gaza, marking the first
delivery in three months. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher called it a “drop in
the ocean
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/19/israel-to-allow-limited-food-into-gaza-amid-intensified-military-offensive>,”
as 500 trucks had been allowed in daily before the war.

The organization has warned that 14,000 babies could die within days if
Gaza does not receive immediate, substantial aid.

“This is not food that Hamas is going to steal,” Fletcher told the BBC
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cdr550j818po>. “We run the risk of
looting, of being hit by the Israeli offensive. We will be impeded, we will
run huge risks, but I don’t see a better idea than getting that baby food
in, to those moms, who at the moment cannot feed their own kids.”
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