Center for Constitutional Rights puts widely condemned foundation on notice as Trump admin considers giving it $500 million

June 11, 2025, New York – The Center for Constitutional Rights notified the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) of its potential legal liability for complicity in Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Palestinians. Unlike the United Nations-run system that it was designed to replace in Gaza, GHF coordinates its operations closely with the Israeli government. In the brief time it has operated, at least 95 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded while seeking food at its militarized sites that are guarded by U.S. private military contractors and overseen by Israeli forces. 

For the last twenty months, Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military assault and siege on Gaza that has resulted in the death of more than 55,000 Palestinians, the destruction of the majority of civilian buildings and infrastructure, and the forcible displacement of nearly the entire population, often repeatedly. Giving effect to the early promise by its then-Minister of Defense of “no food” and a “complete siege” on Gaza, earlier this year, Israel imposed a total closure of Gaza, deepening the famine there, and announced plans to forcibly relocate the Palestinian population of northern Gaza to southern Gaza – a war crime under international law. In late May, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he would allow in a miniscule amount of aid and turned over distribution efforts to GHF, whose four sites are primarily located in the south. The plan, according to U.N. experts, thus aligns with Israel’s unlawful goal of forced displacement as well as shrinking, if not eradicating, the U.N.’s role in Gaza. Nonetheless, the U.S. State Department is considering giving GHF – whose funding remains opaque –  $500 million.

In a letter to GHF’s Executive Chairman Johnnie Moore, the Center for Constitutional Rights warns that, if GHF does not cease its operations in Gaza, they could face civil litigation or criminal prosecution in different countries as well as legal action before international bodies. 

 “For the past twenty months, Israel has used the denial of food, water, and other basic necessities to carry out its genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza. As Palestinians now face mass starvation, Israel has teamed up with GHF to make accessing food not only dangerous and potentially deadly but also a tool of forced displacement,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Katherine Gallagher.  “If GHF continues its militarized aid operations, it must be prepared to face the legal consequences, whether in the United States or beyond.”  

The world’s foremost experts are concluding that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, and already in January 2024 both the International Court of Justice and a U.S. federal district court found the assault to be a plausible case of genocide. From the beginning of its assault on Gaza, Israel has denied residents basic necessities, including food, water, and electricity. In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes, including starvation as a method of war. 

This is the context in which it has emerged that the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) – the global management consulting firm that employed Netanyahu prior to his political career – played a key role in GHF’s creation, in close consultation with Israel. Internal planning documents reveal that  people involved in the development of GHF understood the risk that these privatized distribution hubs would further forced displacement – the same warning that U.N. officials have continued to sound in denouncing the GHF plan as “engineered scarcity” that has made aid distribution “a death trap.” As of today, however, GHF continues to operate while Israel is preventing the United Nations from resuming its operations at 400 distribution sites across Gaza that is so desperately needed in the face of Israel’s infliction of conditions like starvation intended to destroy the Palestinian population.   

Responding to negative publicity, the BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer, who was copied on the Center for Constitutional Rights letter, recently apologized for and ended its involvement in the initiative. Earlier, GHF’s executive director Jake Wood resigned, citing the lack of independence from Israel and the likelihood that the plan would result in forced displacement. The Center for Constitutional Rights also shared the letter with numerous U.N. experts, including the Working Group on mercenaries and the Working Group on business and human rights.

Read the full text of the letter here.