Wednesday, 27 May 2026
A Palestinian boy carries a bowl of food collected at a charity kitchen providing hot meals in Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City, June 18, 2025. (AFP)
UN probe chief calls Gaza Humanitarian Foundation initiative ‘outrageous’
GENEVA - The head of a UN inquiry denounced the use of the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to distribute food in the Palestinian enclave as “outrageous” on Wednesday.
Navi Pillay, chair of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Israel and the Palestinian Territories, added her voice to the mounting criticism of the GHF, highlighting its ties to the United States, AFP reported.
“In every conflict, siege and starvation inevitably result in death,” the former UN human rights chief told reporters.
“But this initiative, presented as a private foundation supplying food, is, to me, outrageous because it directly involves the US government. As we have seen repeatedly, people seeking food at these centers are being killed.”
Launched on May 26 following Israel’s total suspension of supplies to Gaza for more than two months—a move that prompted warnings of widespread famine—the GHF is described as a privately funded organization with little transparency.
Major humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, have declined to collaborate with the foundation, citing concerns that it may serve Israeli military interests.
Numerous Palestinians have lost their lives attempting to reach GHF food distribution points.
Pillay indicated that her commission would be investigating the policy behind, and the execution of, the foundation’s activities.
“We must clarify what motivates, at this moment, the killings of people seeking humanitarian aid from this so-called foundation—lives are being lost just as they try to feed their children.”
Established in May 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council, the unprecedentedly broad three-member Commission of Inquiry investigates alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Pillay, an 83-year-old former South African High Court judge, previously served on the International Criminal Court and presided over the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
On Tuesday, she presented the commission’s latest findings to the Human Rights Council.
The report accused Israel of striking Gaza’s schools and religious and cultural sites in what it described as a “widespread and systematic” attack on the civilian population, alleging Israeli forces had committed “war crimes” and “the crime against humanity of extermination.”
Israel has refused to participate in the inquiry and has consistently accused it of “systematic anti-Israel discrimination.”