'We have not had a single violent incident' at our sites, says head of controversial aid group

The head of the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) insisted on Wednesday that the programme would not be shut down, and denied that Palestinians had been killed at its sites.

The US-based private group with opaque funding began operations on 27 May after Israel halted supplies into Gaza for nearly three months, sparking warnings by human rights organisations around the world that there would be an outbreak of mass famine.

Now, Palestinian civilians risk death trying to obtain food from GHF sites in central and southern Gaza as Israeli forces fire on aid seekers on an almost daily basis. A report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that soldiers are targeting aid seekers. More than 600 people have reportedly been killed in just over a month.

However, GHF's chairman, Johnnie Moore, a Christian evangelical leader aligned with US President Donald Trump, rebuffed calls from a range of NGOs for the efforts to be halted.

"We will not be shut down. We have one job to do. It's very simple, every day to provide free food to the people of Gaza. That's it," he told journalists in Brussels, including AFP.

"We have not had a single violent incident in our distribution sites. We haven't had a violent incident in close proximity to our distribution sites," he said.

The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to work with it, saying it serves Israeli military goals and violates basic humanitarian principles.

The World Health Organisation's chief said on Friday that in the previous two weeks, 500 people had been killed "at non-UN militarised food-distribution sites".

The same day, the medical charity MSF (Doctors Without Borders) said that "every day, MSF teams see patients who have been killed or wounded trying to get food at one of these sites" and called for the scheme to be "immediately dismantled".

Moore said his organisation remained intent on continuing work in Gaza if a ceasefire is agreed. 

"We have no intention, unless we're forced to do so somehow, we have no intention at all to abandon these people," Moore added.