Johnnie Moore, a reverend and executive chairman of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, called on the United Nations to work with the independent, U.S.-funded aid group and challenged the global body to deliver more aid to civilians in the Strip.
The global body “slapped away” the foundation’s offers for cooperation, Moore said at an event at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Thursday. “If you want to join us in solving these problems together, we’re here waiting for you.”
“We’re not territorial. We are adaptable. We are passionate about one thing, and that is feeding hungry people,” he added. “We have to fix the broken system, for sure, but for now, we don’t have to sort through our disagreements.”
No time can be lost feeding Gazans, and “we have to recognize that the current system is prolonging this war and further oppressing the Arab victims of Hamas, the people of Gaza,” Moore said.
Since the foundation began operations in May, it has delivered more than 100 million meals to the people of Gaza, it announced on Friday.
“Gaza is one of the most complex operating environments in the world, and we are very proud of the incredible work our dedicated team has accomplished while operating in a very dangerous and active war zone,” Moore stated in a press statement. “However, the milestone is bittersweet given the continued shortage of aid coming into Gaza from other humanitarian groups who either lack the ability to safely deliver it or the willingness to work with those who can.”
The foundation has faced criticism from international organizations and some lawmakers over claims that it has failed to prevent Gazans from starving and accusations that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid at its distribution sites.
On Sunday, 21 U.S. senators, all Democrats, wrote to Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, asking about American support for the foundation.
“The U.S. government must stop facilitating the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation operations and use U.S. leverage to urge the Netanyahu government to revert to the U.N.-led mechanism, both for the safety and well-being of Palestinians in Gaza and to preserve humanitarian principles that have existed for decades,” the senators wrote.
“Multiple aid organizations and rights groups have warned GHF’s model violates core humanitarian principles: humanity, neutrality, independence, impartiality,” they added. “On what basis does the State Department assess that GHF aligns with these principles?”
Moore told attendees at the Heritage Foundation event that he rejects other aid organizations’ criticisms of the foundation.
“We’re not here to deliberate abstractions to perfect conditions,” he said. “We’re just here to feed people. If others want to join us, they can come. But we will not be deterred by cowardice or by corruption disguised as caution that is neither peace nor strength.”
“If you can prove to us you can save more lives, feed more families, restore more hope, come on,” he said. “Until then, we’re going to judge every actor not by their intentions or by their pedigree but by their results.”
Moore said that the United Nations failed to distribute food aid and now acts as a Hamas mouthpiece.
“The U.N., before they started lying, actually used to disclose the data, and the U.N. data reveals that 90% of World Food Programme trucks never made it to their final destination in Gaza,” he said. “Some U.N. convoys have been used by Hamas to transfer messages and fighters over the course of this war, not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars Hamas made from militarizing and commoditizing free food aid over the course of this war.”
The “bitter irony,” Moore said, is that “some in the United Nations have become the press secretary for Hamas.”
“In effect, in the ceasefire negotiations, they were sitting on the Hamas side of the table, laundering Hamas disinformation every single day.” he said. “They decry hunger in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to deliver their own food, sitting stored in Gaza.
“They pose as humanitarians when they actually are bureaucrats, and arrogant ones, very often living off the largesse of America and Europe in their Manhattan skylines and their Geneva lakefront residences,” he said.
The foundation opts for a different path, he said.
“We bypass failure. We deliver aid directly to the people in need,” he said. “We set a new standard for humanitarian action, rapid deployment, transparent operations every day, disclosing everything that we did, whether it worked or didn’t, measurable impact.”
“Most importantly, a basic fact of common sense,” he said. “Don’t let terrorists steal your food and sell it to make money.”
Mario Bramnick, a pastor and co-chair of the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel who spoke at and was an organizer of the Heritage event, told JNS that since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, “Israel is a safer nation than it has been in decades, the Middle East is realigning” and the United States “is safer through the administration’s exemplary foreign policy, making the world a safer place.”
“In a moment when pundits on the political left and right seem united in their hatred for both Israel and America, we celebrated the strong unity of these two nations,” Luke Moon, Bramnick’s co-chair, told JNS. “Peace will come to the world by America projecting strength. Our conference reminded participants that America truly is a great nation and ally of Israel.”
Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, visited foundation distribution sites on Friday with Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel.
“Hamas hates GHF, because it gets food to people without it being looted by Hamas,” Huckabee stated.
