The Illegality of GHF Operations and Legal Responsibilities

*Source: P.C.H.R

1. GHF was itself illegal.

The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols clearly mandate that aid distribution must adhere to the principles of impartiality, neutrality, humanity, and independence. 

GHF has been closely tied to Israeli political interests and private military actors. Before GHF started operations, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu announced GHF was part of a multi-phase plan that involved creating a sterile area in the south of Gaza where the population from the “fighting areas” will be moved and they “won’t necessarily go back.” UN Special Rapporteurs have denounced its “entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous non-governmental entities” , which made adherence to the UN humanitarian principles impossible. Aid delivery under such a model serves military objectives, including Israel’s genocide, forced displacement and the annexation of Palestinian territory—all of which are prohibited under international law.

Furthermore, GHF was set up by the US specifically for the purpose of replacing the UN agencies that have been operating aid distribution according to these principles. The foundation was introduced after Israel banned UNRWA, the UN agency traditionally responsible for aid in Gaza.

Even according to Jake Wood, executive director of the GHF, who resigned a day before GHF started operations, GHF could not adhere “to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

2. GHF operations amount to war crimes and complicity in genocide, illegal occupation and other crimes against humanity. 

GHF operations included the killing of civilian aid seekers, a war crime under the IV Geneva Convention.

By purporting to substitute the UN run system of hundreds of aid distribution places with 4 aid distribution centers, which were inaccessible to a significant part of the population in need, GHF was 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.

GHF operated in a way that makes aid conditional on political and military aims, as highlighted by UN officials. This undermines the legal definition of humanitarian relief and turns aid into a bargaining chip, a practice that can amount to the war crime of starvation (Rome Statute, Article 8(2)(b)(xxv)) when access is denied or manipulated to punish civilians.

By obliging starving, exhausted Palestinians to walk long distances through militarized zones, or by effectively forcing them to relocate to the south of Gaza in order to obtain food and aid, GHF operated scheme created an immediate risk of forced displacement, violating the prohibition on forcible displacement of civilians. 

3. Who holds the legal responsibility for GHF’s crimes?

Not only GHF and its executives hold civil and criminal responsibility for the crimes committed by GHF, including the complicity in Israel’s crimes. A number of state and corporate actors, are also legally responsible and have to be held to account: 

• Israel: By enabling, promoting and/or directing GHF’s operations, Israel has been violating its own duties under International Humanitarian Law. Even if GHF was nominally independent, its actions are attributable to Israel because it controlled, coordinated, and/or empowered the foundation to carry out governmental functions and duties, i.e. managing humanitarian assistance. Under these conditions, the use of GHF was not just a policy choice; it became a method of unlawful conduct, and part of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

International law allows for privatization, but states remain fully responsible for upholding their legal obligations. In the case of Gaza, privatizing humanitarian aid through GHF appeared to be a deliberate strategy to avoid accountability, rather than a logistical necessity. Israel’s attempt to offload its duties through a private intermediary does not absolve it of legal responsibility—it potentially intensifies its liability.

• Corporations: By contributing to, enabling, and/or profiting from the unlawful establishment of GHF and its criminal operations, all corporations involved with GHF carry legal responsibility. These include the contractors, consultancy firms, as well as banks that channeled the funding for the criminal operation. 

• Third States: Beyond the US as the main operator of GHF, also the “anonymous” Western European states, and their decision makers, which funded GHF despite and after the truth about GHF was publicly denounced, hold legal responsibility for complicity in the crimes. 

All individuals and corporate entities involved in the planning, financing, or execution of the GHF scheme have criminal liability—including under universal jurisdiction statutes—for aiding and abetting war crimes such as the forcible displacement of civilians, starvation as a method of warfare, and denial of humanitarian access.