The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) completely and utterly rejects the new Israel-US plan to distribute aid to the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. This plan will be implemented by private US companies operating under false humanitarian cover and directly secured by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in areas under its military control. PCHR believes this plan serves as a new form of Israel’s engineered siege, starvation and subjugation of Palestinians as part of its genocide ongoing for 19 consecutive months aimed at destroying the Gaza Strip and forcibly displacing its population.
PCHR emphasizes that “the new distribution mechanism” blatantly violates all humanitarian relief standards codified in the international humanitarian law. It is a deliberate move to exclude neutral international organizations and humanitarian agencies, foremostly United Nations and its agencies, particularly the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), preventing them from fulfilling their role in Gaza. This mechanism offers no real sustainable solution to the starvation alarmingly ravaging the Gaza’s population and falsely legitimizes Israel’s institutionalization of its criminal starvation policy as a weapon against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This will further encourage Israel to continuously exploit aid to blackmail the population and control their daily lives and essentials of survival.
According to the Israeli-American plan, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an obscure organization recently set up in Geneva,1 will assume full control over the delivery of food and humanitarian aid in Gaza.2
The mechanism sets up Rafah as a main hub for aid distribution, clearly aligned with a plan recently approved by the Israeli Government3 to forcibly push the residents from all over the Gaza Strip into the south, occupy new areas within the Strip and maintain a prolonged control over these areas. This plan ultimately aims at cramming the residents into rubble-strewn Rafah,
unequivocally proving this project paves the way for the forced displacement of the Strip’s population- a plan openly declared by the Israeli Government and formerly adopted in February 2025. This calculated plan is a blatant violation of the international humanitarian law, which prohibits the altering of the demographic composition of occupied territories.
More than two million Palestinians are enduring a humanitarian catastrophe that is alarmingly exacerbating following IOF’s full closure of crossings and blocking all humanitarian relief aid supplies from entering the Gaza Strip that has been under a siege for more than 70 days. This siege was followed by Israel’s resumption of genocide, mass killings, massive destruction and forced displacement on 19 March 2025.
The UN and humanitarian organizations operating in the Gaza Strip have made clear that they will not participate in any aid distribution scheme implemented by private companies that does not adhere to the global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.4
In light of the above, PCHR emphasizes that Israeli-US plan violates the fundamental principles of humanitarian action as codified in the Four Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols—particularly the principles of neutrality, transparency, and efficiency outlined in Article 70 of the First Additional Protocol. This article mandates that relief operations be conducted in a humane and impartial manner, meaning they should be free from military control, political conditions, or the involvement of private companies in distribution, which could put civilians at risk of coercion and exploitation. This mechanism not only undermines the mandate of UN agencies but also serves as a means for the occupying power to evade its capacity and legal obligations.
This proposed plan breaches Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which obliges the occupying power to ensure the provision of food and medical supplies to the population under its control. Moreover, Article 59 places the occupying power under an obligation to ensure the free and unconditional humanitarian relief operations if the population of an occupied territory is inadequately supplied. Moreover, this plan contravenes all the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in response to South Africa’s Case against Israel, which order taking all possible measures to prevent genocide against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. These measures include preventing the forced displacement of the population from areas in the Gaza Strip and ensuring unimpeded humanitarian access, both of which are clearly violated by this plan.
The ongoing deliberate starvation against civilians in the Gaza Strip and denial of food, water and medical care are acts aimed at the destruction of the Palestinian population, thereby clearly meets the elements of the crime of genocide. By this, the international community must take tangible steps to stop this catastrophe, reclaim the very meaning of humanitarian principles and restore confidence in justice.
PCHR calls on the international community and UN Member States to fulfill their humanitarian and legal obligations immediately, take immediate action and exert pressure on Israel to stop the ongoing crime of genocide, reopen all Gaza’s crossings, allow the unrestricted, immediate and widescale delivery of humanitarian aid under the supervision of the UN and its agencies away from any military or political intervention from any party.
PCHR underlines that verbal condemnations are not enough to stop this plan; rather, real pressure mechanisms must be imposed on the occupying power to end the unlawful siege on the Gaza Strip and strengthen the role of the international organizations, foremost of which protecting UNRWA from any attempts to undermine its mandate and renewing support for it. In its capacity as the only organization capable of providing a fair humanitarian response to the population in Gaza, UNRWA must be safeguarded given its UN mandate and in alignment with the international community’s obligations towards the Palestinian people.
PCHR also calls on the States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to fulfill their obligations by activating and enforcing the arrest warrants issued against senior Israeli leaders. These states must take all necessary measures to ensure their prosecution for alleged crimes, including the crime of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza for over a year and a half. This would eventually end the culture of impunity which does not only jeopardize the rights of Palestinians but also constitutes a threatening precedent that undermines the integrity of the entire international legal system.
[…] IOF have temporarily allowed the entry of these limited quantities of aid into Gaza until the new aid distribution mechanism begins. Under this new mechanism, aid will be distributed by private companies in specific areas, […]
[…] directly targeting committees securing aid, Israel aims to pave the way for the implementation of the new aid distribution mechanism. Under this mechanism, the aid will be distributed by private companies in specific areas, […]