Swiss authorities should investigate the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US-backed group preparing to move aid into the Gaza Strip, justice watchdog TRIAL International said Friday.
Describing the GHF as a private security company, the organization stated that aid distribution should be left to UN organizations and humanitarian agencies.
“The dire humanitarian situation in Gaza requires an immediate response,” TRIAL International’s executive director, Philip Grant, said in a statement. “However, the planned use of private security companies leads to a risky militarization of aid,” he added.
Grant argued that this approach “is not justified in a context where the United Nations and humanitarian NGOs have the impartiality, resources, and expertise necessary to distribute this aid without delay to the civilian population.”
TRIAL International noted that it had filed legal submissions calling on Switzerland, where GHF is registered, to ensure that the group complies with its own statutes and the Swiss legal system.
The GHF has stated it will distribute approximately 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation. However, the United Nations and traditional aid agencies have already indicated they will not cooperate with the group, which some have accused of working with the Zionist entity.
On Thursday, the UN cited concerns about “impartiality, neutrality, and independence.”
Aid began trickling into the Gaza Strip on Monday for the first time in more than two months, amid mounting condemnation of a Zionist blockade that has sparked severe shortages of food and medicine.
On Friday, Gaza’s health ministry reported that at least 3,673 people had been killed in the territory since the Zionist occupation forces resumed strikes on March 18, bringing the overall death toll to 53,822.
