Senate Democrats urge U.S. to stop funding GHF, resume support for UN food distribution in Gaza as more starve

A group of Democratic senators led by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is urging the Trump administration to suspend American financial support for the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private food distribution organization that has been heavily criticized for the way it delivers food aid to Gazans and because so many have been killed trying to reach its distribution sites. 

The U.S. and Israel have advocated for the recently established GHF to replace the United Nations, which has built an extensive network of humanitarian workers inside Gaza over decades. Israel accuses the U.N. of bias and collusion with Hamas.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio Sunday, the 21 senators expressed “grave” concerns about “the U.S. role in and financial support for the troubled GHF.” 

“We urge you to immediately cease all U.S. funding for GHF and resume support for the existing UN-led aid coordination mechanisms with enhanced oversight to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches civilians in need,” the letter reads. 

The U.N. warns that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is growing increasingly dire as more Palestinians are in danger of starvation after a months-long Israeli blockade, and recent military operations complicated humanitarian efforts to help. The IDF claims there is no starvation. 

Van Hollen, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the powerful Appropriations Committee, told CBS News “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” Sunday, “American taxpayers should not be spending one penny to fund this private organization backed by mercenaries and by the IDF that has become a death trap,” noting that scores of Gazans were shot and killed as starving people crowded the GHF sites to obtain food.

The letter focuses on a $30 million pledge from the State Department, announced last month, and on GHF’s operations, particularly its use of armed contractors who stand behind IDF soldiers at food distribution sites in four designated military zones. Starving Gazans must travel to those areas, which is difficult for those too weak to move.

“Blurring the lines between delivery of aid and security operations shatters well-established norms that have governed distribution of humanitarian aid since the ratification of the Geneva Conventions in 1949,” the letter says.

U.S. allies have also been critical of the tactics used by the U.S. and Israeli-backed GHF. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told Margaret Brennan Sunday on “Face the Nation” that Gaza is on the “brink of food catastrophe” and that France expects “the Israeli government to stop the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has caused [a] bloodbath in humanitarian health distribution lines in Gaza.”

U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Friday that a thousand Palestinians have been killed trying to access food since May 27. 

“We hold video calls with our own humanitarians who are starving before our eyes,” Guterres said. “We will continue to speak out at every opportunity. But words don’t feed hungry children.”

The U.N. human rights office said 1,054 people were killed while trying to obtain food since late May, and of those, 766 were killed while trying to reach sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The others were killed when gunfire erupted around U.N. convoys or aid sites.

The group of senators led by Van Hollen are seeking answers about whether necessary oversight is being bypassed to benefit the GHF. Their letter cites public reports that the Trump administration authorized the funds under a “priority directive,” which meant it could avoid “a comprehensive audit that is usually required for groups receiving USAID grants for the first time.” 

The senators want to see the GHF’s “complete funding application and all supporting documentation” and demand to know whether any statutory and regulatory requirements were waived. 

They also asked Rubio about the procurement mechanism that resulted in the $30 million in funding, and they want to know who signed the agreement, who might be liable for compliance violations and whether officials were aware of potential concerns raised by USAID about “GHF’s ability to protect Palestinians while delivering food aid.” 

The State Department has not responded to a CBS News request for comment about the senators’ letter. A department spokesperson said Friday that the funding has been allocated, but it has not yet been disbursed to GHF. 

On Saturday, amid international outcry, the Israel Defense Force began airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza and said it would establish humanitarian corridors to “enable the safe movement of UN convoys delivering food and medicine to the population.” 

The U.N. has said the airdrops are insufficient. Past airdrops have fallen on Gazans and killed them. Now the approximately 2 million people live in Gaza and have been herded into an even more limited zone that lacks extensive open space where air-dropped pallets can land. 

Israel’s announcement came after extensive international outcry at images of starving children, and reports of death. Leaders in Europe, including French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Fredreich Merz, coordinated Saturday by phone. A readout of the call released by the UK said the three leaders said the situation in Gaza is “appalling” and “emphasized the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire, for Israel to lift all restrictions on aid and urgently provide those suffering in Gaza with the food they so desperately need.” 

On Friday, two Jordanian officials said they were considering airdrops and the United Arab Emirates sent a 7,000-ton aid ship to Gaza’s shores. But it has not been determined who will distribute the food once it arrives. 

The GHF says it has distributed more than 91 million meals to Gazans, but there have been almost daily reports of civilians being injured or killed as they try to reach one of the group’s four distribution hubs, all located in southern Gaza. 

In an interview with BBC News this week, Anthony Aguliar, a U.S. Army veteran and former contractor for GHF, detailed what he says he saw on the ground behind IDF lines during humanitarian aid distribution, calling the operation “amateur.”

“I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians. I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces firing a main gun tank round from the Merkava tank into a crowd of people,” Aguilar said. “In my most frank assessment, I would say that they’re criminal. In my entire career, I have never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population.”

In a statement to CBS News, the GHF called Aguilar’s claims “materially false” and said he had been terminated from his position for “misconduct.”

The group has also been criticized by the U.N., which said GHF’s tactics are neither adequate nor safe and make it more difficult for Gazans too weak to travel to military zones to secure food. 

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which provides support for Palestinian refugees, condemned the GHF in June, calling it “an abomination” and “a death trap costing more lives than it saves.”

As the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorated further this week, the GHF and U.N. groups continued to blame each other.

In several public statements and social media posts last week, GHF said the responsibility for the mass starvation lies with the U.N. for allowing their full aid trucks inside Gaza to sit untouched and undistributed.

“The U.N. cannot deliver this humanitarian aid to the people who need it most, and I’m not sure what the reason is,” said GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay in a video posted to X, which showed him standing in front of U.N. aid trucks. “Whether it’s looters, safety or whether they’re playing politics, it just doesn’t matter. The people of Gaza deserve better.”

The executive chairman of GHF, Reverend Johnnie Moore, in an interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro this week accused the U.N. of “playing politics with people’s lives.”

“They’re actually basically a willful participant on the Hamas side of the negotiating table in the ceasefire negotiations, by refusing to distribute aid and spreading this narrative around the world that the people of Gaza are going to starve if Hamas doesn’t, in effect, get its demands at the negotiating table,” Moore said.

The U.N. World Food Programme says hundreds of aid trucks are ready to move, but the approval needed from the Israeli military to transport and distribute that aid is not coming quickly enough. In a statement Friday, they said just over half of their requests to collect cargo were approved and convoys were typically delayed, sometimes up to nearly two days, awaiting permission to travel within Gaza.

Meanwhile, a UNICEF spokesperson confirmed to CBS News that their supplies of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food or RUTF — used for treating severely acutely malnourished children — is expected to run out in mid-August if more is not allowed into Gaza. 

“We are now facing a dire situation that we are running out of therapeutic supplies,” said Salim Oweis, a spokesperson for UNICEF in Amman, Jordan. “That’s really dangerous for children as they face hunger and malnutrition at the moment,” he added.

Oweis said UNICEF had only enough RUTF left to treat 3,000 children. In the first two weeks of July alone, UNICEF treated 5,000 children facing acute malnutrition in Gaza.

The UNICEF spokesperson said the agency is unaware of whether GHF is distributing this type of specialized food and emphasized that it must be given to children after they are assessed by professional health workers to be suffering from acute malnutrition. GHF did not respond to CBS News when asked if the foundation also distributes specialized high-nutrient food for acutely malnourished children.

UNICEF is the main procurer of RUTF in the world. 

Margaret Brennan and Camilla Schick contributed to this report. 

Read the full letter sent by Senate Democrats to Secretary of State Marco Rubio here: