Press Release - 2025-06-05
Violating Law, Undermining Rights:
Coalition Condemns GHF’s Role in Gaza Genocide
The Coalition of Lawyers for Palestine – Switzerland (ASAP) strongly condemns the establishment, operations and aid distribution mechanisms of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.- and Israel-coordinated initiative launched in May 2025. We align with the criticisms and demands of the United Nations (UN), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other legal and humanitarian organizations, and call for immediate accountability and transparency.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has condemned the killings of civilians around GHF aid hubs, calling them a "grave breach of international law and a war crime." The UN has criticized GHF for bypassing established humanitarian agencies and failing to ensure safe, equitable, and dignified access to aid. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has demanded an independent investigation into the deaths of Palestinians seeking food.
The ICRC has warned that GHF's model fails to reach the most vulnerable, including children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Multiple humanitarian organizations have accused GHF of politicizing aid, undermining neutrality, and operating without transparency or coordination with established humanitarian actors.
ASAP Coalition President Majed Abusalama stated:
“It is more than devastating to watch starving Palestinians dehumanized, humiliated, and shot at in another massacre where flour is mixed with blood. This is against every single paragraph of international and humanitarian law. We refuse the militarization of aid distribution. Every single act during this genocide is political. Every bullet, every drone, every checkpoint, every denial of food is a political decision, with legal consequences. We demand that every act—especially those carried out under the guise of humanitarianism—respect the right of Palestinians to self-determination and political sovereignty.”
This demand is grounded in international law. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in the case South Africa v. Israel, recognizing the plausibility of genocide being committed against Palestinians in Gaza and ordering Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts 1. In July 2024, the ICJ also issued an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation, reaffirming the illegality of prolonged occupation and the denial of Palestinian self-determination 2. These rulings are not symbolic—they are binding legal assessments that must guide all international engagement with Gaza.
We categorically reject the placement of former intelligence officers, ex-U.S. military personnel and private mercenaries—operating under the guise of private security companies—in the distribution of aid. Their presence is not humanitarian; it is a continuation of the structured militarized control of a besieged population, allowing their displacement in the Israeli determined zones in the South and their massacre. We also oppose the collection of visual and biometric data under the pretext of aid coordination, which we see as a tool to entrench Israeli colonial governance and surveillance over Gaza.
The Coalition views the GHF project as a modern colonial experiment—a testbed for future scenarios of deeper Israeli control and fragmentation of Palestinian sovereignty. It is not a humanitarian mission; it is a political project cloaked in aid. This calculated insufficiency appears to be aimed at pressuring other countries to “absorb” displaced Palestinians under the guise of humanitarian relief—an approach that dangerously aligns with longstanding efforts to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Human Rights Watch and other observers have raised serious concerns about this tactic, which effectively weaponizes aid to further demographic engineering and forced displacement.
Our colleagues at Trial International have submitted two requests to the Swiss authorities, to investigate the opaque, and potentially criminal role of GHF and the potential violations of Swiss and international humanitarian law. We demand that GHF cease its operations and allow established humanitarian agencies and Palestinian organizations to provide aid in accordance with international humanitarian principles.
The Coalition of Lawyers for Palestine – Switzerland stands in solidarity with the people of Gaza. We call on the international community to act with urgency, not only to protect lives but to uphold justice, dignity, and the political rights of Palestinians. We call to continue to pursue legal avenues in Switzerland and beyond to block GHF’s operations and expose complicity in this ongoing atrocity.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Majed Abusalama, Researcher and President of ASAP Switzerland
info@asap-ch.org