LONDON: The US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will “scale up” its sites in Gaza from four to 16, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has said.
In an interview with Fox News, Huckabee said: “The immediate plan is to scale up the number of sites up to 16 and begin to operate them as much as 24 hours a day.”
The GHF was conceived by Israelis, is operated by American contractors on the ground, and receives diplomatic and financial support from the US, The New York Times reported.
It currently operates four aid distribution sites, mostly in southern Gaza.
Huckabee and Steve Witkoff, the US’ special envoy to the Middle East, visited a GHF site in the enclave last week.
Huckabee’s comments are viewed as a response to mounting criticism of Israel’s war and humanitarian strategy for Gaza.
Aid groups have warned that the enclave is in the grip of a rapidly worsening hunger crisis, with Palestinians confronting famine levels of food insecurity.
The World Food Programme, a UN body, has said that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation, with one-third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row.”
Observers widely viewed the launch of the GHF as an Israeli attempt to supersede Gaza’s existing humanitarian network, which was largely run by the UN.
The foundation has been severely criticized by the UN and has faced a boycott, after UN officials said its methods violated humanitarian law.
Hundreds of Palestinians seeking food have been shot dead near GHF sites since the foundation began operations in May, health workers in the enclave have said.
Israeli forces are stationed close to the sites, and the country’s military said its troops had fired “warning shots” toward crowds of desperate Palestinians.
Huckabee said: “The president has been telling us he wants food into the hands of hungry people, but he wants it in a way that it doesn’t get into the hands of Hamas. That’s exactly what we did when we stood up GHF.”
He added that the foundation coordinated with the Israeli military but was not under its control, and that its results were “pretty phenomenal.”
