(Jerusalem) The Humanitarian Foundation for Gaza (GHF), an American organization supported by Israel which manages a new aid program in Gaza, denied Thursday an article by the Associated Press (AP) according to which American subcontractors ensuring the surveillance of the aid sites of the Foundation in Gaza used real balls and deafening grenades while the hungry Palestinians desperately food.
The AP article, published on Wednesday, is based on the testimonies of two American subcontractors who spoke under the cover of anonymity to reveal information on the internal operation of their employer. They claimed to have come forward because they were disturbed by what they considered irresponsible and dangerous practices. It is also based on texts, internal reports and videos filmed by one of the subcontractors.
The GHF claimed to have launched an “immediate investigation” from its first request for comments by the AP.
“Based on horoded video images and declarations of control witnesses, we have concluded that the affirmations contained in the AP article are categorically false,” they wrote. At no time were civilians the target of fire on a GHF distribution site. »»
Disagreement between GHF and the Israeli army
In his declaration on Thursday, GHF said that the shots heard in the videos obtained by the AC came from the Israeli army, located “out of the immediate surroundings” of the aid sites. She has provided no evidence.
Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani, army spokesperson, told the AP Thursday that the army was “neither inside the sites” nor in the immediate vicinity of these.
PHOTO EYAD BABA, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians gathered to a distribution site of the Humanitarian Foundation for Gaza on June 25, 2025.
GHF said the shots, presented in the AP videos, “were not directed against individuals and that no one had been injured.” The initial report of the AP included photos taken by the entrepreneur showing a woman lying on a cart pulled by a donkey after being touched in the head by a deafening grenade, a tears in tears after being sprayed with tear gas, and videos where we heard shots of real bullets.
Men dressed in gray – people that the contractor having filmed the video identified as his colleagues – are seen launching several deafening grenades on a crowd of Palestinians piled up in a narrow closed alley leading to one of the sites. The deafening grenades sparkle when they land, and the Palestinians are wrapped in thick clouds. Contractants said they had regularly deployed tear gas.
Contractors also told the AP that the Israeli army was not parked on the sites or in the immediate vicinity.
The GHF described as “disturbing” the decision of the AP not to share the videos filmed by the entrepreneur before their publication. He said that the “main source” of the article was a “former unhappy entrepreneur, dismissed for professional misconduct a few weeks before the publication of this article”.
AP decided not to share the videos before the publication.
The AP contacted the GHF, Safe Reach Solutions, the subcontracting company for GHF logistics, and UG Solutions, the company that hired security companies, a week before publication.
The AP described the videos in detail in an email addressed to UG, but decided not to share them in order to protect the security of its sources during the period preceding their publication. The AP carefully checked the testimonies of the two contractors and verified the videos by geolocation, confirming that they had been filmed on humanitarian aid sites. It also requested an audio analysis with forensic experts, who determined that the shots came from a radius of 50 to 60 meters in most of the videos and 115 meters in one.
AP asked to visit the GHF sites several times, but did not obtain authorization to access it. Journalists could not go there because they are located in areas controlled by the Israeli army.
The GHF also said in its press release that it has already removed from the list an entrepreneur who “cried” in a video published by the AP.
In the case of a video, the entrepreneur who filmed him said he saw two other contractors shooting Palestinians leaving the site after recovering their food. He added that the contractors encouraged each other.
In the video, English -speaking men say “I think you touched one” and “damn, my guy! After a burst of shots, but the identity of the shooters and the target of the shots are masked. The contractor who filmed said he saw a man, in the middle of a group of Palestinians leaving the site, collapsing on the ground, in the same direction as that of the balls.
The entrepreneur who filmed the video says it ignore if someone was affected or injured. GHF did not comment on this account in its press release on Thursday, but said that “no one was injured by bullet.”
