Senior Democratic senators called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and USAID/OMB officials to disclose financing and oversight details for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation amid concerns it may operate as a front for intelligence and political operations. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch said the State Department could not answer basic questions about GHF swiftly and overrode internal protocol and staff warnings, raising doubts about oversight capacity. The senators urged immediate cessation of funding and transfer of funds to experienced aid groups, noting discrepancies in public announcements and legal reporting obligations. UN reports tied nearly 1,000 Palestinian deaths near GHF sites since May.
The letter, co-signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch, accuses the state department of an inability to answer basic questions about GHF in a timely manner and said that the department's overriding of internal protocol and staff warnings is particularly concerning given it is unlikely to be able to conduct basic oversight of the funds it provided to GHF.
The State Department should immediately cease funding GHF and transfer or restore funding to experienced aid organizations given the strong and growing evidence that GHF is failing to accomplish its humanitarian mission, they wrote. Trump has said that the US disbursed $60m in food aid to Gaza, while the state department has only publicly acknowledged approval for a $30m grant for GHF in June. The state department has not published details of its grant to GHF, an omission that the senators said violates US law.
Nearly 1,000 Palestinians had died near GHF sites since its operations began in May, the UN reported in mid-August. The new concerns come as the agency was mentioned in a draft plan for a Gaza Riviera that critics have said would provide cover for the large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territory's population and was reportedly developed by those close to GHF.
#gaza-humanitarian-foundation #us-foreign-aid-oversight #gaza-humanitarian-crisis #us-government-accountability
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