Hamas and international aid groups, including the United Nations, have ganged up against a US-backed nonprofit, reframing its record-breaking delivery of aid to civilians in Gaza as providing “nothing but starvation and gunfire,” according to a bombshell new report.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — a US State Department-backed initiative conceived under the Biden administration but only implemented in the last few months — has handed out more than 75 million meals in the Gaza Strip, where a little over two million people live, since late May, according to its organizers.
But its work was “rapidly reframed in public discourse as a source of chaos, deception and complicity in violence,” says a report from the Network Contagion Research Institute, a non-partisan think tank that analyzes extremism online.
The report found that within days of the first meal deliveries, GHF became the target of “a deliberate narrative assault, driven less by verifiable facts than the demands of a competing narrative,” that relied on terror group Hamas for information and was uncritically printed by US and European media outlets.
When reports of violence at and around aid sites began to surface, US media outlets, social media influencers and nonprofits published articles blaming the Israel Defense Forces and, by extention, the GHF for violence against civilians.These were then amplified by masses of bots, according to the report.
The claims were often attributed to Hamas’ Health Ministry, which has “a proven and systematic history of lies, deceptions, duplicated data and exaggerations which strain credulity of any nonpartisan observer,” according to the report.
NCRI’s analysis found that GHF-related media coverage undermined trust in the US and shielded Hamas from any criticism of attacks, with the terrorist group experiencing a 70 percent drop in how much they were blamed for violence near aid sites. The group also found a 38 percent drop in support for US-led aid efforts in Gaza.
“Instead of working together to deliver aid, the UN is acting like a mafia, all because Donald Trump put uncomfortable scrutiny on where international aid to Gaza goes,” said Johnnie Moore, Jr., an author, evangelical leader and businessman who was appointed executive chairman of GHF in June.
“The inexcusable and irresponsible behavior of the press makes this an unbelievable scandal,” he said, adding: “The misinformation has only increased suffering in Gaza. It’s not journalism; it’s activism.”
NCRI analysis of X posts made between May 25 and June 11, the report found negative narratives about GHF were nearly twice as prevalent as positive ones, and posts containing the negative narratives received 116 percent more in total engagements.
Viral posts topping more than 27 million views accused GHF of being a willing participant in a drug-trafficking operation, the report said.
The NCRI report also cited retractions made by news outlets over violence at the GHF aid sites in Gaza.
The Washington Post issued a correction in June for a story featuring the headline, “More than 30 killed by gunfire near US aide site in Gaza” in a story published on June 3. Two days later, the newspaper issued a lengthy correction on its social media sites.
Earlier this month, Reuters retracted a claim that a proposal detailing plans to construct camps in Gaza came from a US-backed aid agency. The NCRI says Reuters had mixed GHF up with the similarly named Global Humanitarian Foundation.
In June CNN corrected its report of a shooting near a Gaza aid site which initially claimed at least 31 Palestinians had allegedly been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, who blamed the IDF.
“The report was published without obtaining a statement from the Israeli military, showing bias in the initial reporting,” the NCRI report said. The original CNN report received more than 2.4 million views on X before it was corrected, while the new version garnered 448,000 views and includes the phrase at the end, “This story has been updated with additional developments.”
MSNBC also issued a correction after it reported 60 Palestinians were killed after waiting for humanitarian aid at a GHF site and then segueing into a video about “controversies” surrounding GHF. While the report was corrected, the video remained on the MSNBC site, according to NCRI.
NCRI also cited false reports of a Gazan pharmacist who claimed that GHF intentionally laced bags of flour with Oxycodone. “This claim went viral on X, racking up over 25.7 million views across just 21 posts,” the NCRI report says.
In May, Craig Mokhiber, a human rights lawyer and former UN official, condemned the GHF in an X post that received nearly 200,000 views. Mokhiber called GHF “a fake humanitarian organization ” and part of Israel’s propaganda efforts “to distract attention from its genocide in Palestine and as a vehicle for blocking actual aid organizations.”
Earlier this month more than 170 nonprofits, including Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders, called for the food aid distribution organization to be dismantled because they said it was putting civilians at risk.
The UN claimed earlier this week that 798 people had been killed in the vicinity of GHF distribution sites — a number the charity has categorically denied, calling it “false and misleading” because the figures come “directly” from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which notably does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its numbers.
“The UN’s reliance and coordination with a terrorist organization to falsely smear our effort is not only disturbing but should be investigated by the international community,” Moore told The Post Tuesday.
“We stepped into a buzz saw,” Moore also claimed, adding that there has been little outrage in the international aid community over the 12 of GHF’s local workers killed in Gaza since the group set up in May.
“If the UN and other humanitarian groups would collaborate with us, we could end or significantly reduce these violent incidents.”
The IDF have admitted to firing on Palestinians around the GHF aid areas if they approach their military positions. The army has also launched air attacks against Hamas targets since the end of a ceasefire on March 18.
Mainstream news services have been banned from entering Gaza to report unless they are embedded with the IDF and agree to certain conditions.
Hamas has this week killed three IDF soldiers, and claimed it “surprises the enemy daily with innovative field tactics,” according to Al Jazeera, as the war continues.
GHF, which is also backed by Israel, was set up to deliver aid to the people of Gaza without it getting diverted to Hamas, according to their website.
In May, Israel lifted a nearly three month ban on aid to the Gaza Strip, and replaced hundreds of food distribution points run by non-governmental organizations with four GHF sites. The group says it works directly with local Palestinian charities to deliver emergency aid to ensure that it reaches those who need it most and does not end up in the hands of Hamas, according to GHF’s website.
Hamas diverted more than $1 billion in aid from a UN agency into military spending for its war against Israel — cash that was used to finance the October 7, 2023 attack against the country, according to a federal lawsuit against past and present officials of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Israel has also accused the UN agency of having links to Hamas.