GHF boss defends Gaza aid operation after hundreds of Palestinians killed near sites

The head of a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid group has defended its work after repeated incidents of killings and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid.

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) boss Johnnie Moore told the BBC World Service's Newshour he was not denying deaths near aid sites, but said "100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to GHF" and that was "not true".

He accused the UN and other international organisations of spreading information they could not verify.

The GHF aid system has been condemned by UN agencies, and on Friday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres branded it "inherently unsafe".

"Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. The search for food must never be a death sentence," the UN chief said.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 500 Palestinians have been killed and 4,000 injured on their way to get aid since GHF took over aid distribution.

Within days of GHF operations starting in late May, dozens of Palestinians were killed in separate incidents on 1 and 3 June, sparking international condemnation.

Since then, the UN and aid groups have expressed alarm at the near-daily reports of Palestinians being killed near the GHF's sites, which are inside Israeli military zones.

Eyewitnesses and medics have on several occasions described Israeli forces opening fire on crowds near aid points.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a story on Friday in which unnamed IDF soldiers said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians near aid distribution sites, to drive them away or disperse them.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected the report calling the allegations "malicious falsehoods".

In a statement to the BBC, the IDF said it "did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centres".

It added it was looking to improve "the operational response" in the aid areas and had recently added new fencing and signage, and opened new routes to reach the handout zones.

For his part, the head of the GHF said "100% of the casualties are being attributed to the IDF - as best as we can tell that's also not true".

In statements over the past month, the IDF have several times said they fired "warning shots" at individuals who they described as "suspects" or claimed posed a threat.

"We spend an extended period of time trying to understand what actually happened, if anything actually happened and whether there's a way that we can make it less likely to happen," Mr Moore said.

"In most circumstances we haven't been able to identify anything happening."

"People need to understand that it is disinformation that people going to GHF sites are being killed, we have no evidence of that happening in proximity to our sites," he added.

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, to send journalists into Gaza, which limits our ability to verify what is happening on the ground in the territory.

Mr Moore alleged that prior to GHF's operations the majority of UN aid trucks were being hijacked at gunpoint.

The UN has said there is no evidence for a large-scale hijacking of its aid trucks. When told this, Mr Moore said the "UN is not being honest".

The volume of aid entering Gaza is still considered inadequate, despite Israel last month partially easing an 11-week blockade introduced in March. Experts have warned the territory remains on the brink of famine.

The GHF is hoping to reach the milestone of providing 50 million meals in Gaza, which would equate to less than a meal a day per person since operations began.

When pushed on whether food was really getting to the people who needed it most, Mr Moore admitted the operation was "inefficient", but said 50 million meals was more than had been available a month ago.

He said the GHF needs to scale up and hopefully work with organisations such as the UN.

"The mission is clear. We just want to feed Gazans," he added.

On Thursday, the US State Department announced $30m (£22m; €26m) in funding for the GHF, which is its first known direct contribution to the group.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 56,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.