New data published last week by the U.N. agency UNOPS shows that most of its aid entering the war-torn Gaza Strip has been looted inside the Palestinian territory. UNOPS provides management services for the world body’s own humanitarian operations.
Despite this, condemnation of Israel over the hunger crisis in Gaza has been ramping up, prompting an increasing number of Western governments to declare intentions to recognize a Palestinian state as punishment, and leading some media outlets to totally tune out the role both international humanitarian organizations and Hamas, whose October 2023 mass terror attack in Israel started the nearly two-year-old war, have played in this catastrophe.Â
“Nobody is able to have nuance in this conflict or hold multiple truths and that’s part of why everybody from journalists to NGOs to U.N. officials, the pro-Palestine people, activists and advocates, parrot the same talking points that there’s no aid theft and that everything is Israel’s fault,” Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Digital.Â
“Just to listen to what Hamas leaders have been saying since October 7,” Michael continued. “They have promised to repeat October 7 again and again, they have called on the Arab world to join the armed resistance against Israel and on the Arab public to pressure their regimes.
“They have also said publicly, and loudly, that they have no problem sacrificing another 100,000 Palestinian civilians for the sake of the victory,” he said.Â
Hamas terrorists stand in formation as Palestinians gather on a street to watch the handover of three Israeli hostages to a Red Cross team in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on Feb. 8, 2025. (Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Yet the GHF has faced scrutiny and blame for the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza amid daily reports by Hamas-backed bodies of civilian deaths at or near their aid distribution points and following chaotic images of people fighting over the food packages or sheltering from gunfire. The new agency has hit back, saying that Hamas, the U.N. and other international aid agencies, are just hoping the initiative fails so they can control all aid operations in Gaza.Â
On Friday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, together with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, visited southern Gaza to inspect one of GHF’s aid distribution sites.
“Went into Gaza today & observed humanitarian food program by U.S. launched GHF. Hamas hates GHF b/c it gets food to ppl w/o it being looted by Hamas. Over 100 MILLION meals served in 2 months,” Huckabee wrote in a post on X.Â
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff speak with an aid worker in Gaza as they visit a distribution site run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation)
David Makovsky, director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said blame for the crisis should not be placed on one party but that “by bringing the U.N.’s own records to bear we can level-set the conversation.
“There is a whole debate about GHF, which will not be settled today,” he noted. “Yet, in a humanitarian emergency crisis, feeding people should take absolute top priority and I think it is incumbent for the U.N. and GHF to work together to feed people.
“I hope that by bringing in lots of food into Gaza you can help innocent suffering people and also dramatically bring down black market rates exploited by Hamas which they use to control their people,” said Makovsky.Â
