A US firm which helped with the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has withdrawn from the foundation after criticism has been targeted at the GHF’s aid system, Middle East Eye via The Washington Post reported on June 3rd.
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) withdrew its members from working in Tel Aviv on May 30th, The Washington Post reported. A spokesperson of the firm suggested that BCG had ended its contract with GHF.
GHF started its operations on May 27th, and the foundation has said that it has distributed tens of thousands of food parcels to Palestinians. But aid agencies have said this falls short of what is required to tackle the widespread food insecurity in Gaza.
This aid model, which restricts food delivery to a limited amount of hubs overseen by US security contractors, intends to take the distribution away from UN-led aid agencies.
The delivery of aid in Gaza follows alarming threats to the safety of aid workers. Israeli forces, according to Palestinian officials, executed handcuffed Palestinian medics and buried them in a mass grave beneath their crushed ambulances in southern Gaza’s Rafah, Middle East Eye reported on March 31st.
Fifteen humanitarian workers had disappeared after rushing to help civilians under Israeli attack. The group included eight Palestinian Red Crescent Society paramedics (PRCS), six Palestinian Civil Defence search-and-rescue workers, and one UN staff member.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence, said each victim had suffered around 20 gunshot wounds.
The Palestinian health ministry confirmed that some victims had their hands tied and gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Basal described the executions as a “brutal massacre”. He accused Israeli forces of attempting to cover up the crime by burying the workers two to three metres deep.
Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Palestine, said the mass grave lay just metres from their vehicles. “The occupation forces removed the victims from the vehicles, executed them, and dumped their bodies in the pit,” he stated.
The PRCS denounced the killings as a war crime, saying the paramedics died while performing their humanitarian duties. Whittall described the scene as “an absolute horror,” adding that the mass grave was marked by the emergency light from one of the crushed ambulances.
The International Committee of the Red Cross had called the attack the deadliest assault on Red Cross/Red Crescent workers since 2017.
Middle East Eye, The Washington Post
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