UN Experts Call For GHF To Be Dismantled
An exceptionally-large group of the UN-mandated experts voiced grave concerns over the GHF's operations.
The private organisation began distributing food in Gaza Strip in May as Israel began easing a more than two-month aid blockade on the Palestinian territory that had exacerbated existing shortages.
"The GHF ... is an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law," the experts said in a joint statement.
"The entanglement of Israeli intelligence, US contractors and ambiguous non-governmental entities underlines the urgent need for robust international oversight and action under UN auspices.
"Calling it 'humanitarian' adds on to Israel's humanitarian camouflage and is an insult to the humanitarian enterprise and standards."
On July 22, the UN rights office said Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the GHF started operations -- nearly three-quarters of them in the vicinity of GHF sites.
"Without clear accountability, the very idea of humanitarian relief may ultimately become a casualty of modern hybrid warfare," the special rapporteurs said.
"The credibility and effectiveness of humanitarian assistance must be restored by dismantling the GHF, holding it and its executives accountable, and allowing experienced and humanitarian actors from the UN and civil society alike to take back the reins of managing and distributing lifesaving aid."
The joint statement was signed by Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
Israel accuses her of having an "obsessive, hate-driven agenda to delegitimise the state of Israel".
The statement was also signed by 18 other special rapporteurs, plus other UN experts and members of UN working groups -- a notably large number for such statements.
Special rapporteurs are independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to report their findings. They do not, therefore, speak for the United Nations itself.
More than two million people live in the Gaza Strip.
GHF says it has distributed more than 1.76 million boxes of foodstuffs to date.
"We continue to improve our operations," GHF executive director John Acree said Monday.
"We urge the international humanitarian community to join us -- we have the scale and capacity to deliver more aid to the people of Gaza."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Int'l Business Times
an hour ago
- Int'l Business Times
Pacific Microstate Sells First Passports To Fund Climate Action
A remote Pacific nation has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island. Pacific microstate Nauru, one of the world's smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called "golden passports". Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the "climate resilience citizenship" programme. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications -- covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start -- Nauru eventually hopes to sell 66 passports in the scheme's first year -- President David Adeang remained upbeat. "We welcome our new citizens whose investment will assist Nauru to secure a sustainable and prosperous future for generations to come," he told AFP on Thursday. Nauru believes the passport programme could eventually generate $43 million -- or about 500 successful applicants -- which would account for almost 20 percent of total government revenue. But there are fears the scheme could be ripe for exploitation. Edward Clark, who runs Nauru's climate passport programme, said one application has already been withdrawn after officials flagged "adverse findings" during background checks. "The application would have been rejected had it not been withdrawn," he told AFP. A previous Nauru attempt to sell passports ended in disaster. In 2003, Nauru officials sold citizenship to Al-Qaeda members who were later arrested in Asia. Among the first batch of climate passports approved was an unnamed German family of four living in Dubai, said Clark touting the "major milestone". "They were looking for a second citizenship to provide them with a Plan B given the current global political volatility." The Nauru passport provides visa-free entry into 89 countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong. More than 60 different nations offer some form of migration for investment schemes, Australia's Lowy Institute has found. Pacific nations such as Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga have all dabbled in selling passports. The island republic of Nauru sits on a small plateau of phosphate rock in the sparsely populated South Pacific. With a total landmass of just 21 square kilometres (eight square miles), it is one of the world's smallest nations. Unusually pure phosphate deposits -- a key ingredient in fertiliser -- once made Nauru one of the wealthiest places, per capita, on the planet. But these supplies have long dried up, and researchers today estimate 80 percent of Nauru has been rendered uninhabitable by mining. What little land Nauru has left is threatened by encroaching tides. Scientists have measured sea levels rising 1.5 times faster than global averages. Nauru will eventually need to relocate 90 percent of its population as creeping seas start to eat away at its coastal fringe. The first phase of this mass relocation is estimated to cost more than $60 million.
Int'l Business Times
8 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Lebanon's Hezbollah Rejects Cabinet Decision To Disarm It
Hezbollah said Wednesday that it would treat a Lebanese government decision to disarm the militant group "as if it did not exist", accusing the cabinet of committing a "grave sin". Amid heavy US pressure and fears Israel could expand its strikes on Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Tuesday that the government had tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by year end. The plan is to be presented to the government by the end of August for discussion and approval, and another cabinet meeting is scheduled for Thursday to continue the talks, including on a US-proposed timetable for disarmament. Hezbollah said the government had "committed a grave sin by taking the decision to disarm Lebanon of its weapons to resist the Israeli enemy". The decision is unprecedented since Lebanon's civil war factions gave up their weapons three and a half decades ago. "This decision undermines Lebanon's sovereignty and gives Israel a free hand to tamper with its security, geography, politics and future existence... Therefore, we will treat this decision as if it does not exist," the Iran-backed group said in a statement. The government said its decision came as part of implementing a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which culminated in two months of full-blown war. Hezbollah said it viewed the government's move as "the result of dictates from US envoy" Tom Barrack. It "fully serves Israel's interests and leaves Lebanon exposed to the Israeli enemy without any deterrence", the group said. Hezbollah was the only faction that kept its weapons after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. It emerged weakened politically and militarily from its latest conflict with Israel, its arsenal pummelled and its senior leadership decimated. Israel has kept up its strikes on Hezbollah and other targets despite the November truce, and has threatened to keep doing so until the group has been disarmed. An Israeli strike on the southern town of Tulin on Wednesday killed one person and wounded another, the health ministry said. Israel also launched a series of air strikes on southern Lebanon, wounding at least two people according to the health ministry. The Israeli military said it struck "weapons storage facilities, a missile launcher and Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure which stored engineering tools that allowed for the re-establishment of terrorist infrastructure in the area". Hezbollah said Israel must halt the attacks before any domestic debate about its weapons and a new defence strategy could begin. "We are open to dialogue, ending the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, liberating its land, releasing prisoners, working to build the state, and rebuilding what was destroyed by the brutal aggression," the group said. Hezbollah is "prepared to discuss a national security strategy", but not under Israeli fire, it added. Two ministers affiliated with Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement walked out of Tuesday's meeting. Hezbollah described the walkout as "an expression of rejection" of the government's "decision to subject Lebanon to American tutelage and Israeli occupation". The Amal movement, headed by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, accused the government of "rushing to offer more gratuitous concessions" to Israel when it should have sought to end the ongoing attacks. It called Thursday's cabinet meeting "an opportunity for correction". Hezbollah opponent the Lebanese Forces, one of the country's two main Christian parties, said the cabinet's decision to disarm the militant group was "a pivotal moment in Lebanon's modern history -- a long-overdue step toward restoring full state authority and sovereignty". The Free Patriotic Movement, the other major Christian party and a former ally of Hezbollah, said it was in favour of the army receiving the group's weapons "to strengthen Lebanon's defensive power". Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a televised interview that any decision on disarmament "will ultimately rest with Hezbollah itself". "We support it from afar, but we do not intervene in its decisions," he added, noting that the group had "rebuilt itself" following setbacks during its war with Israel.
Int'l Business Times
9 hours ago
- Int'l Business Times
Grok, Is That Gaza? AI Image Checks Mislocate News Photographs
This image by AFP photojournalist Omar al-Qattaa shows a skeletal, underfed girl in Gaza, where Israel's blockade has fuelled fears of mass famine in the Palestinian territory. But when social media users asked Grok where it came from, X boss Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot was certain that the photograph was taken in Yemen nearly seven years ago. The AI bot's untrue response was widely shared online and a left-wing pro-Palestinian French lawmaker, Aymeric Caron, was accused of peddling disinformation on the Israel-Hamas war for posting the photo. At a time when internet users are turning to AI to verify images more and more, the furore shows the risks of trusting tools like Grok, when the technology is far from error-free. Grok said the photo showed Amal Hussain, a seven-year-old Yemeni child, in October 2018. In fact the photo shows nine-year-old Mariam Dawwas in the arms of her mother Modallala in Gaza City on August 2, 2025. Before the war, sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Mariam weighed 25 kilograms, her mother told AFP. Challenged on its incorrect response, Grok said: "I do not spread fake news; I base my answers on verified sources." The chatbot eventually issued a response that recognised the error -- but in reply to further queries the next day, Grok repeated its claim that the photo was from Yemen. The chatbot has previously issued content that praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and that suggested people with Jewish surnames were more likely to spread online hate. Grok's mistakes illustrate the limits of AI tools, whose functions are as impenetrable as "black boxes", said Louis de Diesbach, a researcher in technological ethics. "We don't know exactly why they give this or that reply, nor how they prioritise their sources," said Diesbach, author of a book on AI tools, "Hello ChatGPT". Each AI has biases linked to the information it was trained on and the instructions of its creators, he said. In the researcher's view Grok, made by Musk's xAI start-up, shows "highly pronounced biases which are highly aligned with the ideology" of the South African billionaire, a former confidante of US President Donald Trump and a standard-bearer for the radical right. Asking a chatbot to pinpoint a photo's origin takes it out of its proper role, said Diesbach. "Typically, when you look for the origin of an image, it might say: 'This photo could have been taken in Yemen, could have been taken in Gaza, could have been taken in pretty much any country where there is famine'." AI does not necessarily seek accuracy -- "that's not the goal," the expert said. Another AFP photograph of a starving Gazan child by al-Qattaa, taken in July 2025, had already been wrongly located and dated by Grok to Yemen, 2016. That error led to internet users accusing the French newspaper Liberation, which had published the photo, of manipulation. An AI's bias is linked to the data it is fed and what happens during fine-tuning -- the so-called alignment phase -- which then determines what the model would rate as a good or bad answer. "Just because you explain to it that the answer's wrong doesn't mean it will then give a different one," Diesbach said. "Its training data has not changed and neither has its alignment." Grok is not alone in wrongly identifying images. When AFP asked Mistral AI's Le Chat -- which is in part trained on AFP's articles under an agreement between the French start-up and the news agency -- the bot also misidentified the photo of Mariam Dawwas as being from Yemen. For Diesbach, chatbots must never be used as tools to verify facts. "They are not made to tell the truth," but to "generate content, whether true or false", he said. "You have to look at it like a friendly pathological liar -- it may not always lie, but it always could."
