US Consulting Firm Ends Contract with Israeli-Backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Amid Mounting Criticism

Gaza (Quds News Network)

Boston Consulting Group, which helped design and run the business operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a controversial US-backed group assigned to deliver aid to Gazans, has withdrawn its team from the program amid mounting criticism and reports of mass killings of starving aid seekers by Israeli forces.

According to a Tuesday report by The Washington Post, the leading US management consulting firm hired last fall to help design the program and run its business operations withdrew its team operating on the ground in Israel.

A spokesperson for Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said the company had terminated its contract with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and placed one of the senior partners leading the project on leave, pending an internal review.

The Post, citing three people closely connected to both the GHF and BCG, said that it would be difficult for the foundation to continue to function without the consultants who helped create it.

In addition to helping develop the initiative in close coordination with Israel, BCG set the prices for paying and equipping the array of contractors who built four distribution points in southern Gaza and to deliver the aid.

“They are actually making the wheels turn,” said one of the people involved of BCG’s involvement.

A spokesperson for BCG stated that the firm had provided “pro bono” support to the operation and will not get paid for any of the work it has done on behalf of the foundation.

Another person familiar with its operations contradicted the firm’s account, saying that BCG had presented monthly invoices of more than $1 million.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office on Tuesday, 102 starving Gazans have been killed and 490 others injured by Israeli fire near GHF aid distribution points in southern Gaza’s Rafah and the so-called Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza since Israel’s new aid mechanism was launched on May 27.

The Office accused Israel of “a horrific, intentionally repeated crime”, saying it has been luring starving Palestinians to its US-backed aid distribution centres and then opening fire on them.

“The so-called ‘aid’ distribution centres, which are located in exposed and dangerous red zones under the control of the occupation army, have turned into mass bloodbaths, luring starving civilians to them as a result of the crippling famine and the tightening siege,” the Office said.

“They are then deliberately and coldly shot, in a scene that epitomises the malice of the project and exposes its true objectives,” it added.

The Office called on “the United Nations, its Security Council and human rights organisations to assume their moral and legal responsibilities, take immediate action, and exert pressure using all available means to open official crossings without interference or conditions from the occupation”.

The latest attack occurred early Tuesday morning, when Israeli fire killed 27 aid seekers and injured 90 others as they waited for food distribution in the al-Alam area of Rafah.

Drone footage, eyewitness videos, and testimonies from medical teams in Rafah all confirmed that Israeli forces opened fire directly and intensively on civilians, with many of the fatalities receiving gunshot wounds to their head or chest.

On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, according to reports by human rights organisations who have accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinains.

An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report last month warned that almost a quarter of the civilian population would face catastrophic levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase Five) in the coming months.

After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed since last week by the GHF, a scandal-plagued organization backed by the US and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques.

The UN confirmed that Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians with only a few trucks of aid having reached Gaza last week.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that “weaponizing aid in this manner may constitute crimes against humanity.”

“Today’s events have shown once again that this new system of aid delivery is dehumanising, dangerous and severely ineffective,” Claire Manera, MSF’s emergency coordinator, said in a statement on Sunday.

“It has resulted in deaths and injuries of civilians that could have been prevented. Humanitarian aid must be provided only by humanitarian organisations who have the competence and determination to do it safely and effectively,” she added.

Moreover, two senior officials of the foundation resigned in the first week of its operations. Jake Wood, who resigned as executive director, said in a statement that the group’s plans could not be consistent with the “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.” The chief operating officer, David Burke, also resigned, according to The Post.