On May 27th, the people of Gaza gathered in Rafah not for protest, not for politics, but for food. UNRWA was gone. Their families were starving. What awaited them wasn’t relief, it was crosshairs. Over 100 Palestinians were killed at an aid site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a group backed not by the UN or the Red Crescent, but by American military contractors.

They came for flour and left in body bags.

The Death of Neutral Aid

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, founded in 1949, has been the primary humanitarian body operating in Gaza for decades. It provided education, healthcare, and food aid to over a million Palestinian refugees. Despite ongoing criticism from Israel, who accused it of bias and inefficiency, UNRWA remained a neutral actor in a region where neutrality is rare.

In January 2024, Israel accused 12 UNRWA employees of having ties to Hamas during the October 7 attacks. Within days, the United States, Germany, the UK, and several other donor nations froze their contributions. No full investigation was ever concluded. By the time the UN appointed an independent review, the damage was done. Israel had succeeded in branding UNRWA as compromised.

What replaced it was not a humanitarian coalition. It was a privatized system, managed by firms with ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex. Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions now oversee the delivery of food and medicine to Gaza. Their distribution points are secured by armed contractors, watched from Israeli drones, and surrounded by snipers. They do not wear blue helmets. They wear tactical gear and take orders that aren’t rooted in international law.

The result? Civilians shot while approaching the food that international law guarantees them. Aid turned into bait. Humanitarianism weaponized. for decades the backbone of humanitarian efforts in Gaza, was removed from the equation. The reason? Allegations that a dozen staff had ties to Hamas. There was no trial. No transparent investigation. Just a chorus of Western governments pulling funding overnight, led by Israel’s insistence that the agency could no longer be trusted.

What replaced it was not a humanitarian coalition. It was a privatized system, managed by firms with ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex. Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions now oversee the delivery of food and medicine to Gaza. Their distribution points are secured by armed contractors, watched from Israeli drones, and surrounded by snipers. They do not wear blue helmets. They wear tactical gear and take orders that aren’t rooted in international law.

The result? Civilians shot while approaching the food that international law guarantees them. Aid turned into bait. Humanitarianism weaponized.

The Massacres at the Aid Sites

Between May 27 and June 3, at least 102 Palestinians were killed while attempting to receive aid. Many of the dead had been shot in the head and chest, despite Israeli claims that only warning shots were fired. Hundreds more were injured. Eyewitness accounts from Rafah and central Gaza report tanks firing without warning, drones circling above, and perimeter fire from nearby buildings.

One survivor, 19-year-old Adham, said, “We waited six hours in the sun for a sack of flour. Then the drones came. I saw a boy younger than me drop beside the aid truck, shot in the neck.”

The Israeli military, when questioned, claimed that warning shots were fired. They blamed the victims for approaching aid incorrectly, for not following orders, for not remaining in single file. As if starvation obeys protocol. As if the desperate should be punished for reaching too quickly.

Who Are These Mercenaries?

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation claims neutrality. Their contractors do not. Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions are registered U.S. defense contractors, deeply embedded in the machinery of foreign occupation. Safe Reach has previously held logistics and surveillance contracts in Iraq’s Green Zone and partnered with the U.S. military on supply chains during the Afghanistan war. UG Solutions made headlines in 2017 for its role in forcibly securing Syrian oil fields during U.S. withdrawal maneuvers, and has a long record of operations that blur the line between security and armed enforcement.

Neither company has a public history of humanitarian work. Their selection for aid distribution in Gaza is not a coincidence, but a signal that relief here is viewed as a battlefield. When pressed for comment, Safe Reach’s spokesperson said they were “providing safe and orderly access to humanitarian goods,” but refused to comment on the use of live fire or the rules of engagement.

These are not aid workers. They are contractors with combat experience. Their job is not just logistics, but control. Order. Enforcement. Their presence is not neutral. It is ideological and strategic.

This isn’t aid distribution. It’s occupation by another name.

The Real Goal: Control, Not Relief

Why replace the UN? Because the UN wasn’t obedient. UNRWA reported Israeli airstrikes on schools. It documented forced starvation. It provided an international spotlight Israel couldn’t dim. So it was dismantled. In its place came a system that delivers just enough aid to prevent mass famine, but not enough to relieve suffering. A system that lets Israel say, “we are helping,” while the bodies pile up next to sacks of flour.

The message to Palestinians is clear: We will starve you. Then we will shoot you for being hungry. And the world will call it humanitarian aid.

The United States didn’t just allow this. It paid for it. The Trump regime doubled down on military aid to Israel and openly praised the dismantling of UNRWA. Rather than distance itself from the privatization of aid, it celebrated the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as a model of ‘controlled distribution’ and national security alignment. Trump officials referred to UNRWA as a ‘deep state relic,’ reinforcing a narrative that justified the starvation of civilians under the guise of reform, while turning a blind eye to Gaza’s starvation. In January 2024, it led the charge to suspend funding to UNRWA after Israeli claims that a handful of its staff were involved in the October 7 attacks. Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia quickly followed. The European Commission, under pressure from Israel, also halted funds temporarily.

Their public justification was that humanitarian aid could not be allowed to support terrorism. But no evidence was provided, no due process was afforded, and the punishment fell not on staff, but on the millions who depended on UNRWA’s services.

In contrast, Ireland, Spain, Norway, and Belgium refused to cut funding. These nations questioned the timing and political motive behind Israel’s accusations and warned of the humanitarian collapse that would follow UNRWA’s sidelining. Their support allowed limited UN operations to continue, though overshadowed by the emergence of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and its militarized model.

Humanitarian principles are being rewritten to fit military objectives. Civilians are being treated as combatants. Hunger is being punished with bullets.

The Cost of Silence

Every time a Western official says “we’re monitoring the situation,” a child dies in Gaza. Every time an aid truck is guarded by a man in Kevlar instead of a peacekeeper, a mother loses her son to another massacre.

This is not a humanitarian mission. This is a military campaign dressed in the clothes of compassion.

They replaced the UN with mercenaries. Then they shot the hungry. The world saw it. And the world did nothing.