From the Liveblog of
Thursday, August 7, 2025
US envoy says GHF aid sites may begin operating 24 hours a day as mission expands
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US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says Gaza aid sites run by the American-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation plan to begin operating all day and night, as the operation looks to “scale up.”
“The immediate plan is to scale up the number of sites up to 16 and begin to operate them as much as 24 hours a day to get more food to more people more efficiently,” Huckabee tells Fox News.
GHF sites currently only operate a few hours each day. The issue of Palestinians attempting to reach sites before opening hours was apparently a factor in a number of deadly incidents in the first several weeks of GHF’s rollout in which Israeli troops fired “warning shots” at groups of aid seekers showing up at the wrong time.
Despite criticism of the GHF’s operations, Huckabee calls the mission “phenomenal,” saying it has delivered 106 million meals thus far.
The ambassador earlier told Bloomberg News that there was a push to quickly add 12 aid sites to the four currently operated by the GHF, but noted that the plan depended on funding and IDF operations in northern Gaza. The GHF only operates in areas where troops have taken control, outside of Palestinian population centers.
The GHF has long spoken of expanding operations, but has seemingly struggled thus far to keep all four of its sites open simultaneously.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, the expansion will be funded by approximately $1 billion in donations from the US and other countries.
Huckabee’s comments come as Israeli leaders are set to approve a controversial plan to bring vast new areas of northern and central Gaza under IDF control over several months, pushing hundreds of thousands more Palestinian civilians into displacement camps in the southern part of the Strip.
The Times of Israel Community.