Israel is planning to use a little-known foundation to funnel what humanitarian groups said were inadequate amounts of aid into Gaza as its military draws up plans to seize large areas of the besieged enclave.
The country has in recent days shared details of the plan — which was authorised by Israel’s war cabinet on Sunday — with some western diplomats and humanitarian officials. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar briefed the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas on Tuesday, he said on X.
People being briefed have not received copies of the proposed changes in writing, and were told the plan — under which Palestinians would be pushed south to the border with Egypt — was still evolving.
The UN and most major aid agencies have rejected the plan, which comes as Israel refuses to end a two-month siege in which it has prevented all food, medicine and other essentials from entering the strip.
Three humanitarian officials in Israel briefed on the proposal said an entity called the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” would be responsible for handing out food parcels to Palestinians at distribution points secured by the Israeli military and private military contractors.
One person briefed said most of the distribution points would be located in southern Gaza. Another called it a “half-baked, bizarre and cruel” plan to lure the majority of Gaza’s population to the south, much of which has been razed by the Israeli military.
Israel has been unclear about how many distribution points would be set up, but the maximum number discussed, 10, would be woefully inadequate for Gaza’s 2.2mn population, another official said.
Those who refuse to move to the southern edge of the enclave voluntarily would later be subject to forced evacuation orders, which Israel has repeatedly used to force Palestinian civilians around the strip ahead of military operations, two of them said.
“We do not accept a proposal and a plan that does not live up to the core fundamental humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independent delivery of aid,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday.
One official warned that, if it were to participate fully with the IDF’s plans, the UN would stand to lose its independence in the conflict, place its own employees at risk, and aid the forced displacement of Palestinians.
Kallas wrote on X that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “untenable”.
“Humanitarian aid must resume immediately and should never be politicised,” she said. “The new aid delivery mechanism should run through humanitarian actors.”
But one western diplomat briefed on the new approach said the idea was worth exploring.
“There is an understandable need to look for new solutions, and what could work,” they said, adding that it was “worth a try” to see if the mechanism would succeed in delivering much-needed aid.
The new aid proposal comes alongside plans for an expanded offensive, codenamed “Gideon’s Chariot”, created by the Israeli military to satisfy the demands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet allies, who have championed the siege and demanded a full occupation of Gaza.
Nearly Gaza’s entire population has been displaced and left dependent on aid during the 19-month war, which started after Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on southern Israel.
The Israeli military, which is obliged under international law to facilitate the entry of essential humanitarian assistance into Gaza, referred questions to the government, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Palestinians en route to southern Gaza would be screened at checkpoints, manned by the Israeli military and private security contractors, designed to prevent Hamas fighters from moving alongside the population to this new “sterile zone”, according to three people briefed.
The Israeli military has previously set up similar “filtration points”, at which Palestinians have been beaten, taken to secret detention sites and subject to harsh interrogation.
The Washington Post reported that the IDF could use American companies at these checkpoints, and US President Donald Trump said on Monday that “we’re going to help the people of Gaza get some food. People are starving, and we’re going to help them get some food”.
Israel has repeatedly justified its siege by claiming, without evidence, that Hamas diverts aid brought in by international organisations, or enriches itself by charging protection money. Humanitarian groups say the problem is not widespread.
People told about the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” in meetings with Israeli officials said no more details were provided.
A foundation with that name was registered this year in Switzerland, saying its goal was to “provide humanitarian aid to people affected by the conflict in the Gaza Strip, including the secure provision of food, water, medicine, shelter and reconstruction”. The president of the foundation did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The international aid organisations, including the UN, have understood that the thousands of tons of food that Israel has blocked from entering Gaza could be taken by the IDF to distribution points run by this foundation, according to two of the people briefed.
“The sense we got was this was the only way in which Israel would allow food into Gaza,” said one person briefed on the talks.
Hebrew-language media reported that Netanyahu’s far-right allies supported the plan because it kept the IDF in closer control of aid distribution, allowing the Israeli military to decide who could receive food and medicine.
It would also push desperate Palestinians closer to the border with Egypt, providing a possible exit route for a population the ministers are keen to remove from Gaza.
Trump has repeatedly pressured Egypt to take in Palestinian refugees en masse, with no guarantee that they would ever be allowed to return, an idea widely decried as “ethnic cleansing”.
Egypt has declined to open its border, except for medical evacuations and certain specific cases.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, said on Tuesday that the war would not end until Gaza was “entirely destroyed”, according to AFP.
