Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says will begin delivering aid today, expresses regret over CEO’s resignation

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says it will begin delivering aid to the Strip today, expressing regret over the resignation of its CEO who stepped down yesterday.

“We were disappointed to learn of Jake Wood’s sudden resignation as Executive Director of GHF. He has been a passionate advocate for the need to safely deliver humanitarian assistance to Gazans without diversion or delay, and achieved real progress for the entire humanitarian community in the short time he was involved in this effort. The fact that aid is beginning to trickle back into Gaza is a testament to his work,” the board says in a statement.

“Unfortunately, from the moment GHF was announced, those who benefit from the status quo have been more focused on tearing this apart than on getting aid in, afraid that new, creative solutions to intractable problems might actually succeed,” the statement reads.

“We will not be deterred. Our trucks are loaded and ready to go. Beginning Monday, May 26, GHF will begin direct aid delivery in Gaza, reaching over one million Palestinians by the end of the week. We plan to scale rapidly to serve the full population in the weeks ahead,” GHF says.

There is no immediate comment from the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which coordinates the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Jake Wood, CEO of the new Israeli- and US-backed organization that was supposed to begin managing the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza, announced yesterday he was tendering his resignation, saying said he understood that it would be impossible to implement the plan while “strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

While technically an American company, GHF was established in close coordination with Israeli authorities in order to manage the new aid initiative, and Wood’s resignation marks a major blow to Israel’s effort to resume aid in Gaza on its own terms.

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.