The U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announced Monday it will permanently close its operations in Gaza, six weeks after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, saying it had completed its mission to deliver aid outside the United Nations system.
GHF director John Acree said the foundation “succeeded in showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans” and will transfer its work to the U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel. The foundation claimed over 3 million food boxes, equivalent to 187 million meals, had been distributed during its operation.
Palestinians and aid groups criticized GHF, saying the system forced civilians to risk their lives traveling to aid sites under Israeli military control. While GHF said no violence occurred at the sites, witnesses and video reports indicated U.S.-employed security personnel used live ammunition and stun grenades as crowds sought food.
Meanwhile, Israel’s defense minister and military chief clashed publicly over probes into failures during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the war in Gaza. Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered a re-examination of the military’s internal review and froze new appointments, prompting military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir to call the move “puzzling” and potentially harmful to army readiness.
Zamir emphasized that the military had investigated its own failures and that any further review should be conducted by an independent external commission. Katz later reaffirmed his authority over military appointments, citing the government’s chain of command.
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said it killed a militant wanted in a May 2024 attack that killed two Israeli soldiers in Nablus. The army has conducted extensive operations in the West Bank since the Oct. 7 attacks, displacing tens of thousands and causing casualties among both militants and civilians.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, over 69,700 Palestinians have been killed and 170,800 injured in the Gaza war, with women and children constituting a majority of the casualties.