By JULIA FRANKEL and SAM MEDNICKUpdated 7:28 PM EDT, July 2, 2025
In recent news, contractors in Gaza report that their colleagues are firing live ammunition amid the dire food situation for Palestinians. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, rescue teams have found 31 survivors after a ferry sank near Bali. Tensions are escalating between Russia and Azerbaijan, prompting questions about the reasons behind this surge in conflict:
1. Allegations of Excessive Force & Reckless Practices
- Live Ammunition & Crowd Control Weapons: Two anonymous U.S. contractors working for UG Solutions (a security subcontractor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, GHF) reported that their colleagues frequently used live bullets, stun grenades, and pepper spray against Palestinians seeking food, even when no threat was present .
- One contractor described bullets being fired “in all directions—into the air, ground, and at times toward Palestinians”, recalling an incident where he believed someone was hit .
- Videos show armed contractors celebrating gunfire, with one heard shouting, “Hell, yeah, boy!” after bursts of shooting .
- High Volume of Non-Lethal Weapons: During a single distribution in June, contractors used:
- 37 stun grenades
- 27 rubber-and-smoke “scat shell” projectiles
- 60 cans of pepper spray .
- Injuries Reported: An internal Safe Reach Solutions (SRS, GHF’s logistics subcontractor) report noted injuries in 31% of distributions over a two-week period in June, though SRS claimed these were “non-serious” .
2. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF): A Controversial U.S.-Backed Operation
- Background: GHF is a secretive U.S.-registered organization (Delaware, February 2025) backed by Israel to replace the UN-led aid system, which Israel accuses Hamas of exploiting .
- The U.S. pledged $30 million to GHF in June 2025—its first known donation .
- Swiss branch dissolved due to legal irregularities (lack of board members, Swiss bank account) .
- Access & Transparency Issues:
- Journalists are barred from GHF sites, located in Israeli military-controlled zones .
- Palestinians describe the process as chaotic and deadly, with Israeli forces firing on crowds approaching distribution points .
3. Israeli Military & Surveillance Involvement
- Alleged Coordination with Israeli Forces:
- Contractors claimed American and Israeli personnel jointly monitored aid-seekers in a real-time control room at Kerem Shalom crossing, using facial recognition software to flag “suspicious” individuals .
- “POI Mugs Card”: An internal SRS document circulated photos of Palestinians deemed “persons of interest” .
- Israeli Denials:
- The Israeli military (IDF) stated it only fires “warning shots” near aid sites and is not stationed at GHF locations .
- However, Palestinian witnesses say IDF gunfire kills hundreds near distribution routes .
4. Security Failures & Lack of Oversight
- Untrained, Unvetted Contractors:
- UG Solutions reportedly hired personnel with no combat experience, some recruited via last-minute emails .
- Contractors were given Israeli automatic rifles without proper “zeroing” (calibration), increasing misfire risks .
- Leadership Issues:
- A high-ranking contractor called the operation “amateur hour” in an email, citing lack of staff and resources .
- Jameson Govoni, UG Solutions’ founder (a former Green Beret), was arrested in April 2025 for a hit-and-run, raising questions about oversight .
5. Humanitarian Catastrophe & International Response
- Starvation & Violence:
- Over 57,000 Palestinians killed since October 2023; 650+ killed at aid sites since GHF’s May 2025 launch .
- UNRWA and 130+ NGOs (Oxfam, Amnesty) demand GHF’s closure, accusing it of facilitating attacks on civilians .
- U.S. & UN Reactions:
- The UN calls for investigations into killings at GHF sites, noting its four “mega-sites” are insufficient compared to 400+ UN-run centers .
- Dr. Mads Gilbert (Norwegian doctor in Gaza) calls GHF a “sham operation” using food as “bait to terrorize and kill” .
Key Takeaways
- Excessive Force: U.S. contractors allegedly used live fire and crowd-control weapons indiscriminately, with video and audio evidence supporting claims .
- GHF’s Controversial Role: A U.S.-funded, Israel-backed alternative to UN aid, criticized for lack of transparency and civilian harm .
- Israeli Military Ties: Despite denials, contractors allege collaboration on surveillance and crowd control .
- Security Failures: Poorly trained contractors and reckless practices exacerbate risks for Palestinians .
- Humanitarian Crisis Worsens: Starvation and violence persist, with international bodies demanding accountability .
For further details, refer to the AP’s full report and related investigations . https://apnews.com/article/palestinians-israel-gaza-contractors-aid-distribution-fe27f3ea83e06a09d66424eed7a5d56f
Excerpts from the report:
The testimonies from the contractors — combined with the videos, internal reports and text messages obtained by the AP — offer a rare glimpse inside the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the newly created, secretive American organization backed by Israel to feed the Gaza Strip’s population. Last month, the U.S. government pledged $30 million for the group to continue operations — the first known U.S. donation to the group, whose other funding sources remain opaque.
Journalists have been unable to access the GHF sites, located in Israeli military-controlled zones. The AP cannot independently verify the contractors’ stories.
A spokesperson for Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics company subcontracted by GHF, told the AP that there have been no serious injuries at any of their sites to date. In scattered incidents, security professionals fired live rounds into the ground and away from civilians to get their attention. That happened in the early days at the “the height of desperation where crowd control measures were necessary for the safety and security of civilians,” the spokesperson said.
Aid operation is controversial
Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the 21-month war, Israel has bombarded and laid siege to the strip, leaving many teetering on the edge of famine, according to food security experts.
For 2 1/2 months before GHF’s opening in May, Israel blocked all food, water and medicine from entering Gaza, claiming Hamas was stealing the aid being transported under a preexisting system coordinated by the United Nations. It now wants GHF to replace that U.N. system. The U.N. says its Gaza aid operations do not involve armed guards.
Over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the war erupted, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants.
GHF is an American organization, registered in Delaware and established in February to distribute humanitarian aid during the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis. Since the GHF sites began operating more than a month ago, Palestinians say Israeli troops open fire almost every day toward crowds on roads heading to the distribution points, through Israeli military zones. Several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses.
In response, Israel’s military says it fires only warning shots and is investigating reports of civilian harm. It denies deliberately shooting at any innocent civilians and says it’s examining how to reduce “friction with the population” in the areas surrounding the distribution centers.
AP’s reporting for this article focuses on what is happening at the sites themselves. Palestinians arriving at the sites say they are caught between Israeli and American fire, said the contractor who shared videos with the AP.
“We have come here to get food for our families. We have nothing,” he recounted Palestinians telling him. “Why does the (Israeli) army shoot at us? Why do you shoot at us?”
A spokesperson for the GHF said there are people with a “vested interest” in seeing it fail and are willing to do or say almost anything to make that happen. The spokesperson said the team is composed of seasoned humanitarian, logistics and security professionals with deep experience on the ground. The group says it has distributed the equivalent of more than 50 million meals in Gaza in its food boxes of staples.
GHF says that it has consistently shown compassionate engagement with the people of Gaza.
Throughout the war, aid distribution has been marred by chaos. Gangs have looted trucks of aid traveling to distribution centers and mobs of desperate people have also offloaded trucks before they’ve reached their destination. Earlier this month, at least 51 Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded while waiting for the U.N. and commercial trucks to enter the territory, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a local hospital. Israel’s military acknowledged several casualties as soldiers opened fire on the approaching crowd and said authorities would investigate.
Videos, texts, internal reports document havoc at food sites
AP spoke to the two contractors for UG Solutions, an American outfit subcontracted to hire security personnel for the distribution sites. They said bullets, stun grenades and pepper spray were used at nearly every distribution, even if there was no threat.
Videos of aid being dispensed at the sites seen by the AP appear to back up the frenetic scenes the contractors described. The footage was taken within the first two weeks of its distributions — about halfway into the operations.
In one video, what appear to be heavily armed American security contractors at one of the sites in Gaza discuss how to disperse Palestinians nearby. One is heard saying he has arranged for a “show of force” by Israeli tanks.
“I don’t want this to be too aggressive,” he adds, “because this is calming down.”
At that moment, bursts of gunfire erupt close by, at least 15 shots. “Whoo! Whoo!” one contractor yelps.
“I think you hit one,” one says.
Then comes a shout: “Hell, yeah, boy!”
The camera’s view is obscured by a large dirt mound.
The contractor who took the video told AP that he saw other contractors shooting in the direction of Palestinians who had just collected their food and were departing. The men shot both from a tower above the site and from atop the mound, he said. The shooting began because contractors wanted to disperse the crowd, he said, but it was unclear why they continued shooting as people were walking away.
The camera does not show who was shooting or what was being shot at. But the contractor who filmed it said he watched another contractor fire at the Palestinians and then saw a man about 60 yards (meters) away — in the same direction where the bullets were fired — drop to the ground.
This happened at the same time the men were heard talking — effectively egging each other on, he said.
In other videos furnished by the contractor, men in grey uniforms — colleagues, he said — can be seen trying to clear Palestinians who are squeezed into a narrow, fenced-in passage leading to one of the centers. The men fire pepper spray and throw stun grenades that detonate amid the crowd. The sound of gunfire can be heard. The contractor who took the video said the security personnel usually fire at the ground near the crowds or from nearby towers over their heads.
During a single distribution in June, contractors used 37 stun grenades, 27 rubber-and-smoke “scat shell” projectiles and 60 cans of pepper spray, according to internal text communications shared with the AP.
That count does not include live ammunition, the contractor who provided the videos said.
One photo shared by that contractor shows a woman lying in a donkey cart after he said she was hit in the head with part of a stun grenade.
An internal report by Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics company subcontracted by GHF to run the sites, found that aid seekers were injured during 31% of the distributions that took place in a two-week period in June. The report did not specify the number of injuries or the cause. SRS told the AP the report refers to non-serious injuries.
More videos show frenzied scenes of Palestinians running to collect leftover food boxes at one site. Hundreds of young men crowd near low metal barriers, transferring food from boxes to bags while contractors on the other side of the barriers tell them to stay back.
Some Palestinians wince and cough from pepper spray. “You tasting that pepper spray? Yuck,” one man close to the camera can be heard saying in English.
SRS acknowledged that it’s dealing with large, hungry populations, but said the environment is secure, controlled, and ensures people can get the aid they need safely.
Verifying the videos with audio analysis
To confirm the footage is from the sites, AP geolocated the videos using aerial imagery. The AP also had the videos analyzed by two audio forensic experts who said they could identify live ammunition — including machine-gun fire — coming from the sites, in most cases within 50 to 60 meters of the camera’s microphone.
In the video where the men are heard egging each other on, the echo and acoustics of the shots indicate they’re fired from a position close to the microphone, said Rob Maher, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University and an author and research expert in audio forensic analysis. Maher and the other analyst, Steven Beck, owner of Beck Audio Forensics, said there was no indication that the videos’ audio had been tampered with.
The analysts said that the bursts of gunfire and the pop sequences in some of the videos indicated that guns were panning in different directions and were not repeatedly aimed at a single target. They could not pinpoint exactly where the shots were coming from nor who was shooting.
GHF says the Israeli military is not deployed at the aid distribution sites. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said the army is not stationed at the sites or within their immediate proximity, especially during operating hours. He said they’re run by an American company and have their own security.
One of the contractors who had been on the sites said he’d never felt a real or perceived threat by Hamas there.
SRS says that Hamas has openly threatened its aid workers and civilians receiving aid. It did not specify where people were threatened.
American analysts and Israeli soldiers work side by side, contractors say
According to the contractor who took the videos, the Israeli army is leveraging the distribution system to access information.
Both contractors said that cameras monitor distributions at each site and that American analysts and Israeli soldiers sit in a control room where the footage is screened in real time. The control room, they said, is housed in a shipping container on the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The contractor who took the videos said some cameras are equipped with facial recognition software. In live shots of the sites seen by the AP, some videos streams are labeled “analytics” — those were the ones that had the facial recognition software, said the contractor.
If a person of interest is seen on camera — and their information is already in the system — their name and age pops up on the computer screen, said the contractor. Israeli soldiers watching the screens take notes and cross-check the analysts’ information with their own drone footage from the sites, he said.
The contractor said he did not know the source of the data in the facial recognition system. The AP could not independently verify his information.
An internal SRS report from June seen by the AP said that its intel team would circulate to staff a “POI Mugs Card,” that showed photos of Palestinians taken at the sites who were deemed persons of interest.
The contractor said he and other staff were told by SRS to photograph anyone who looked “out of place.” But the criteria were not specified, he said. The contractor said the photos were also added to the facial recognition database. He did not know what was done with the information.
SRS said accusations that it gathers intelligence are false and that it has never used biometrics. It said it coordinates movements with Israeli authorities, a requirement for any aid group in Gaza.
An Israeli security official who was not named in line with the army’s protocol, said there are no security screening systems developed or operated by the army within the aid sites.