"Human Rights, Legal Organizations Warn Privatized 'Humanitarian' Operators in Gaza of the Risk of Legal Liability for Complicity in Serious Violations of International Law", 23 June 2025

We, the undersigned human rights and legal organizations, are extremely concerned with the recent replacement of impartial United Nations (“UN”) agencies and well-established humanitarian organizations with the newly-created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (“GHF”), which is working in collaboration with the Israel government and U.S. private military and security companies (“PMSC”) in the famine-struck occupied Gaza Strip...

We call on GHF and all organizations and individuals who have furthered or are furthering the work of GHF, and the private military contractors at the distribution hubs including Safe Reach Solutions (“SRS”) and UG Solutions, to cease their operations. Failure to do so may expose these organizations and their officers, representatives, and agents to further risk of criminal and civil liability for aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide in violation of international law, U.S. law and other relevant national laws under the principle of universal jurisdiction. We further urge these private entities to instead press for, and actively support the immediate restoration of aid delivery through the UN, including the UN Relief and Works Agency (“UNRWA”), well-established international humanitarian groups, and Palestinian aid organizations.

...The use of lethal force against Palestinians seeking aid—whether by the Israeli military or the contractors—has ... become a regular occurrence, leading some to describe GHF distribution sites as “death traps.” In the three weeks since GHF began operations, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured while seeking food at GHF sites.

GHF’s militarized model, coupled with its close collaboration with Israeli authorities, undermines the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. ... This opaque, for-profit model also lacks transparency and accountability. GHF’s operational plans, funding streams, and decision-making structures remain undisclosed, with little or no independent humanitarian oversight. Consequently, the initiative falls short of the transparency, impartiality, and accountability standards that govern humanitarian assistance under international law.

GHF’s operations, and those of the PMSCs working with it, may amount to or facilitate grave violations of international humanitarian, human rights and criminal law. By obliging starving, exhausted Palestinians to walk long distances through militarized zones, or by effectively forcing them to relocate in order to obtain food and aid under a system overseen by Israeli forces and U.S. private military contractors, the scheme creates an immediate risk of forced displacement that may violate the prohibition on forcible displacement of civilians. By instrumentalizing humanitarian aid for political or military ends, the scheme risks rendering its participants complicit in collective punishment, the starvation of civilians, and other acts prohibited under customary international law, the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Genocide Convention...