Gaza aid foundation chief quits as further Israeli airstrikes kill dozens

The head of a US-backed foundation set to supply aid in Gaza quit unexpectedly on Sunday, a day before the group was due to begin operations, as an Israeli airstrike on a school building killed dozens of Palestinians sheltering inside.

Jake Wood, executive director of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for the past two months, said he resigned because it could not adhere "to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence".

His departure underscores the confusion surrounding the foundation, which has been boycotted by the United Nations and the aid groups supplying aid to Gaza before Israel imposed a total blockade on the enclave in March.

The groups say the new system will undermine the principle that aid should be overseen by a neutral party. Israel, which floated a similar plan earlier this year, says it will not be involved in distributing aid but it had endorsed the plan and would provide security for it.

Last week, under growing international pressure, Israeli authorities allowed a trickle of aid into the Palestinian enclave but the few hundred trucks carried only a tiny fraction of the food needed by a population of 2 million at risk of famine after nearly three months of blockade.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which would use private contractors working under a broad Israeli security umbrella, said it would begin deliveries on Monday, with the aim of reaching one million Palestinians by the end of the week.

"We plan to scale (up) rapidly to serve the full population in the weeks ahead," it said in a statement.

The Switzerland-registered foundation has been heavily criticised by the United Nations, whose officials have said the private company's aid distribution plans are insufficient for reaching the more than two million Gazans.

The new operation will rely on four major distribution centres in southern Gaza that will screen families for involvement with Hamas militants, potentially using facial recognition technology, according to aid officials.

But many details of how the operation will work remain unexplained, and it was not immediately clear whether aid groups that have refused to cooperate with the foundation would still be able to send in trucks.

Hamas condemned the new system, saying it would "replace order with chaos, enforce a policy of engineered starvation of Palestinian civilians, and use food as a weapon during wartime".

Israel says the system is aimed at separating aid from Hamas, which it accuses of stealing and using food to impose control over the population, a charge rejected by Hamas, which says it protects aid convoys from gangs of armed looters.

CONTINUED AIRSTRIKES

While the aid system is worked out, Israel has continued to carry out strikes across the densely populated Gaza Strip, killing at least 45 people on Monday, according to local health authorities.

In Gaza City, medics said, 30 Palestinians, including women and children who had been displaced by the 20-month war and were seeking shelter in a Gaza City school, were killed in an airstrike. Images shared widely on social media showed what appeared to be badly burned bodies being pulled from the rubble.

Israel's military confirmed that it had targeted the school. It said that the building was being used as a centre by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants to plan and organise attacks.

It said numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.

The military did not provide evidence that the school was being used by militants. On Monday, Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said Hamas had lost many assets including its command and control infrastructure.

Another strike on a house in Jabalia, adjacent to Gaza City, killed at least 15 other people, medics said, taking Monday's death toll to 45.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas control centre overnight on Sunday in Gaza, targeting a facility that was used to "plan and gather intelligence in order to execute terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops".

Overall, it said it hit 200 targets, including weapons storage facilities, sniper and anti-tank positions and tunnels.

Israel stepped up military operations in the enclave in early May, saying it is seeking to eliminate Hamas' military and governing capabilities and bring back remaining hostages who were seized in Hamas' cross-border attack in October 2023.

The campaign, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said will end with Israel in complete control of Gaza, has squeezed the population into an ever-narrowing zone in coastal areas and around the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Israeli campaign, triggered after Hamas-led Islamist militants stormed Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, has devastated Gaza and pushed nearly all of its residents from their homes.

The offensive has killed more than 53,000 people in Gaza, many of them civilians, according to its health authorities.