Elizabeth Warren has confronted the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, over reports that the state department is considering redirecting $500m from USAID to the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
In a letter addressed to Rubio and USAID’s acting administrator, Kenneth Jackson, the Massachusetts senator argued that the GHF, a self-proclaimed aid organisation that is backed by the Israeli and US governments, “marks an alarming departure from the professional humanitarian organizations that have worked on the ground, in Gaza and elsewhere, for decades”.
“The questions surrounding GHF – its funding sources and connection to the Trump Administration, its use of private contractors, its ability to serve and be seen as a neutral entity, its abandonment by its founders, and its basic competence in providing aid – must be answered before the State Department commits any funding to the organization,” Warren wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided exclusively to the Guardian.
The letter from Warren requested answers by 2 July on whether USAID is considering awarding any funds to the GHF, the terms of a possible agreement and the GHF’s connections to the Boston Consulting Group, which reportedly helped set up the group’s operations. BCG canceled its cooperation with the GHF after the organisation was embroiled in controversy following a series of shootings by Israeli forces at its food distribution sites.
Reuters first reported that funds directed to USAID, which is being rolled into the state department, could be rerouted to the GHF in an important boost to a troubled organisation that opened food distribution centres in Gaza last month. The GHF has struggled to partner with major aid organisations, even as Israeli and US officials have put pressure on NGOs to route their humanitarian through the GHF or face having no access to Gaza at all.
Major aid organisations have boycotted the GHF, which was forced to temporarily close some of its food distribution centres shortly after its launch last month due to security concerns. Israeli forces have opened fired into crowds near the food distribution sites several times in mass casualty events that Israeli officials have said took place in self-defence. Hundreds of Gazans have been killed.
Jake Wood, the former executive director of the GHF, resigned last month shortly before operations began. He said that he could not guarantee the organisation’s “independence” from political influence. Critics have argued that the GHF is a tool for the Israeli and US governments to politicise humanitarian aid and to distribute it in ways that will depopulate sectors of Gaza in apparent violation of international law.
The Guardian has approached the state department for comment.
