Head of embattled Gaza aid program tells Jewish group starvation is ‘real’ — but blames the United Nations and Hamas
Rev. Johnnie Moore says Hamas and other aid groups are waging a disinformation campaign against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
Palestinians at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution center in Gaza on May 29. Photo by Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Arno Rosenfeld July 22, 2025
Rev. Johnnie Moore, who leads the beleaguered U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, said Gaza Palestinians are starving, but the blame lies with Hamas, the United Nations and other aid organizations.
“The desperation is real,” Moore said on a webinar Tuesday with the American Jewish Congress. “The people need food.”
Moore said that Hamas and the United Nations are focused on running a disinformation campaign that is discouraging other aid groups from working with GHF to distribute food in the enclave.
Aid organizations allege that the GHF model is risky and inefficient and want traditional aid distribution groups to return to their roles.
The program has been plagued with questions about its efficacy and by reports of chaos erupting around distribution centers, where Israeli soldiers and Hamas have allegedly fired on desperate Gazans. Top officials and consultants have quit the program, in some cases before it was launched.
“Hamas has been trying to use the aid situation to advance their ceasefire position,” Moore said, “using ‘starvation’ language for political purposes.” Hamas and Israel are still locked in ceasefire talks. Hamas wants aid distribution returned to U.N. and other agencies, which Israel has said are susceptible to corruption and collusion with the terrorist group.
Moore’s organization came under intense scrutiny even before operations launched in May, with security provided by the Israeli military and private security contractors. It was one of the only groups Israel allowed to distribute food in Gaza following an 11-week blockade of aid into Gaza that Israel said was intended to pressure Hamas.
Dozens of Palestinians have been shot and killed while waiting in line for aid at GHF locations, though Moore said reports of these incidents were overstated and that there have been more casualties at United Nations aid sites.
“We do not deny there have been civilians killed trying to seek aid in the Gaza Strip,” said Moore, an evangelical leader and former Trump campaign adviser with no background in international aid. “The IDF doesn’t deny they’ve been responsible for some of that, Hamas does deny it.”
Reporting on the group’s operations has described dangerous conditions at heavily secured GHF aid sites, with thousands of Palestinians — some on foot, others on motorcycles — rushing to receive food when the gates are open. Violence often ensues.
Israeli soldiers secure the sites, and have opened fire on Palestinians who the military says come too close to troops.
Assaf Weiss, the vice president of the American Jewish Congress, a once prominent group that has faded into obscurity over the past two decades, asked Moore about calls from far-right Israeli leaders like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to ban all aid from entering Gaza.
Moore said that “any politics whatsoever” made it “more difficult for us to do our work” but that he had “a hard and fast rule that the one thing I will not do is get in the middle of Israeli politics.”
Moore said that “there’s nothing more Christian than feeding people” but also that he was guided by two Jewish principles from Pirkei Avot: in a place where there are no leaders, be a leader, and “it is not up to you to finish the task but you are not free to avoid it.”
He spent much of the time on the webinar defending GHF and claiming that “there is this conspiracy theory we exist in order to displace Palestinians,” which he called a lie. Critics have alleged that food distribution failures may be designed to persuade Palestinians to leave Gaza, or to head to the small areas where Israel hopes to confine them at least until the war ends.
Moore said that the United Nations was too narrowly focused on defending UNRWA, its main agency in Gaza, from efforts by the United States and Israel to shut it down and as a result was refusing to partner with Moore’s group. He said that they were allowing food to rot in aid convoys along the border with Gaza.
“The people need food and that’s what’s so profane about the U.N.,” Moore said.
