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Two days ago, there was an interview on Nieuwsuur with Chapin Fay, the American spokesperson for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The interview was about the shootings of starving Palestinians that had taken place primarily in southern Gaza and are still ongoing.
I have some reservations about the broadcast because viewers were only told what had happened and to what extent the American answers corresponded with those events. Important background information was missing, such as an explanation of how the organization came into being. The question of who founded the organization is secondary. You can't verify the reliability of things if you don't know how they came into being, let alone their origins.
Let me begin with a different story, because it has much in common with the activities of GHF.
We have to go back to November 2023. I found several reports and publications from the Cypriot government in which they stated that they fully supported the Israelis.
A month later, I found reports describing meetings between the Cypriot government and the Israelis. It was during these meetings that the idea of a "Gaza corridor" was hatched.
However, the Cypriots presented the idea publicly, first in Paris and later in Brussels, as if it were their own. I discovered that the "corridor" was the brainchild of Israel Katz, then the Israeli Foreign Minister. The Israelis were already looking for a way to eliminate UNRWA, as they wanted full control over "aid" delivery.
In March 2024, after the Cypriots had presented "their plan" to the European Commission, two remarkable events occurred:
On March 7, Biden announced plans to build a pier off the coast of Gaza, while a day later, Ursula von der Leyen announced plans to open a "corridor" between Cyprus and Gaza. It was a blatant plot to circumvent UNRWA, and this plot marked the beginning of a smear campaign that labeled the UN organization as affiliated with Hamas. In doing so, Biden, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Cypriots all encouraged the militarization of humanitarian aid, which then-Israeli Minister Yoav Gallant began in October 2023.
The story about the notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation bears a resemblance to the one described above. And, here too, we must go back in time.
It all began on September 24, 2024, when retired Israeli general Giora Eiland unveiled a plan at a military forum that would later become known as "starve to death or surrender." This plan, aimed at northern Gaza, was quietly adopted by Netanyahu a week later and implemented on November 6.
"Starve to death or surrender" turned out to be a deflection. It was a disguised term to give the impression it was aimed at Hamas. In reality, it was aimed at everyone in northern Gaza. This became clear when I observed how the Israelis implemented this strategy. I found the way they razed Jabalia to the ground very similar to the way the Israelis did it in 2006 when they bombed Daliyah, a neighborhood in Beirut.
The way the Israelis leveled the Lebanese neighborhood has since become a military doctrine, the Daliyah doctrine. It wasn't only used in northern Gaza. They also used it to raze Rafah to the ground. This method is a war crime because it amounts to the destruction of existence.
The application of the Daliyah doctrine was aimed at everyone, forcing them to leave the entire north. The Palestinians who were there refused because they had already been chased from pillar to post many times. The Israeli military leadership saw Giora Eiland's strategy fall to pieces. They were forced to come up with a new plan to finally expel the Palestinians from the north.
COGAT came up with a plan involving the establishment of so-called aid points in southern Gaza and one in central Gaza, while simultaneously blocking all aid flows to the north. The plan was to be implemented in a way that would make it appear as if the Israelis had nothing to do with it.
The Israelis approached the Americans, who in turn contacted figures with dubious backgrounds. These figures were presented to the Israelis, and they made a selection.
For example, Jake Wood, who later resigned due to increasing negative reports about GHF, is a former sniper in the US Army, and his successor, Johnnie Moore, comes from the world of radical Christian groups operating primarily in Africa. He was also involved in the Trump campaign. Chapin Fay, who acts as GHF's "spokesperson," comes from the world of media strategy.
Contact was also made with American "security firms" specializing in "crisis areas." Think of Blackwater in Iraq. However, this part of the plan is a military matter. One might therefore expect the Israeli military leadership to be involved.
In the context of the situation in Gaza, Netanyahu's staff, behind the backs of the military, chose two inexperienced security firms, Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) and UG Solutions. Both companies are frankly camouflaged paramilitary organizations.
GHF was originally set up as an alternative to expelling the Palestinians from northern Gaza.
Now back to Chapin Fay, the GHF "spokesperson" with a media background. He certainly knows how to frame the picture to remain "credible."
However, not many Dutch people understand how Israelis think and where such American thinking comes from. Their strategy is simple: simply blame the victim. Tell a story that focuses solely on what you've achieved for yourself. Don't even mention things you've done to the Palestinians. Exaggerate or bring up things that never existed, let alone happened. If you master all this, you speak the (Israeli) language of hasbara, and that's what Fay does on Nieuwsuur.
I've been investigating all the Israeli wars in Gaza for over 15 years. Never before has an investigation been as comprehensive as the one on the current war, simply because I've encountered elements I haven't seen in previous Gaza wars.
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