Gaza: “Sham” aid plan goes ahead as doctor sees nine of her 10 children killed
BMJ 2025; 389 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1100 (Published 27 May 2025) Cite this as: BMJ 2025;389:r1100
A controversial Israel and US backed organisation, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), says it has begun to distribute an unspecified amount of aid in Gaza, despite its executive director resigning just a day earlier.1
The GHF has been tasked with distributing aid to the Gaza strip, which has been unable to access lifesaving aid for months because of an Israeli blockade.2 Little is known about the organisation. It does not appear to have a website or any publicly available information detailing its work.
Reports suggest that GHF plans to hold aid at four hubs in Southern Gaza, with Palestinians expected to travel to secure food and supplies, which they will only be able to access if they pass a screening process for potential links to Hamas. This may involve facial recognition and biometric screening.34
Announcing his resignation on 26 May, GHF executive director Jake Wood said, “It is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”5
The initiative has been roundly criticised by the UN and humanitarian organisations, with some calling it a “dangerous, politicised sham” and a “cynical sideshow.”67
The GHF’s aid distribution comes weeks after Israel announced its plans to introduce a militarily controlled aid mechanism, and also to deregister all aid organisations already working in the region.
These organisations would then be forced to reapply for registration, but could be rejected if anyone linked to the organisation had shown “public support for a boycott of Israel in the past seven years” or if they failed to meet “exhaustive reporting requirements.” They would also be required to supply Israel with sensitive information about staff and their families, which has raised safety concerns given that humanitarian and healthcare workers have been routinely targeted, detained, attacked, and killed.8
Ethnic cleansing
Last week UK foreign secretary David Lammy announced he had suspended trade negotiations with Israel after Israeli ministers said that Gaza needed to be “cleansed.”
Speaking in the House of Commons on 20 May Lammy said, “Yesterday, minister [Bezalel] Smotrich even spoke of Israeli forces ‘cleansing’ Gaza, ‘destroying what’s left,’ of resident Palestinians ‘being relocated to third countries.’ We must call this what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous. It is repellent. It is monstrous.”9
Since then, images of a school that was being used as a shelter by families which was set alight after a midnight airstrike by Israeli forces on 26 May have been widely circulated on social media. The attack on Fahmi al-Jarjawi school in Gaza City killed 36 Palestinians, including at least 18 children, according to reports.10
“Entire families were wiped out. The classrooms were filled with children and women, people who had fled from Shujaiyya and Beit Hanoun. They came here seeking safety, crowded together, only to be reduced to charred corpses,” a witness told Middle East Eye.11 “Those still alive clung to the classroom windows, screaming ‘Save us, help us,’ after catching fire. We couldn’t break down the walls to rescue them.”
Médecins Sans Frontières said Israeli forces are continuing to use last minute displacement orders “as a violent tool, turning the Gaza Strip into hell on earth for Palestinians.”12
The charity said in a statement on 27 May, “Incessant bombing, a near total blockade of aid, and displacement orders are moving and trapping hundreds of thousands of people into ever shrinking spaces. The constant state of alert and unpredictability of displacement orders have devastating consequences on people’s mental health.” It added that these forced displacements are part of Israel’s “campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
Israeli strike kills doctors’ nine children
Gazan paediatric specialist Alaa al-Najjar was working in the Nasser Medical Complex last week when an Israeli strike hit her home, the Middle East Eye has reported.13 The attack killed nine of her 10 children, and injured her husband, a fellow doctor, and their other child.
The World Health Organization has recorded 1528 attacks on healthcare in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 7 October 2023, including 782 that affected health facilities. Over 1000 healthcare workers are estimated to have been killed, as well as over 400 aid workers.14
At least 94% of hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since 7 October 2023, according to WHO, with just 19 of 36 remaining somewhat operational (as of 22 May).
Continued attacks and evacuation orders by Israeli forces “threaten to push even more health facilities out of service,” WHO has said. Four major hospitals—European Gaza Hospital, Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, Indonesia Hospital, and Kamal Adwan Hospital—have recently suspended medical services because of their “proximity to hostilities or evacuation zones, and attacks.”
The continued closure of European Gaza Hospital, following an attack on 13 May, has cut off “vital services including neurosurgery, cardiac care, and cancer treatment—all unavailable elsewhere in Gaza.”
Nasser hospital was bombed by Israeli forces on 19 May, damaging essential medical supplies. The hospital’s surgical ward was also bombed a week earlier, killing two patients.15
Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director for Medical Aid for Palestinians, said, “Our team in Gaza has been working tirelessly to get medical supplies to hospitals and ensure care for those in desperate need, only to see them obliterated by Israeli military strikes. It’s heartbreaking, it’s outrageous, and it must be stopped. How many more hospitals must be destroyed? How many more patients must die in hallways before there is accountability?”