Elizabeth Warren demands answers over reports of $500m deal for controversial Gaza Health Foundation
Elizabeth Warren has confronted the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, over reports that the state department is considering redirecting $500m from USAID to the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
In a letter addressed to Rubio and USAID’s acting administrator, Kenneth Jackson, the Massachusetts senator argued that the GHF, a self-proclaimed aid organization that is backed by the Israeli and US governments, “marks an alarming departure from the professional humanitarian organizations that have worked on the ground, in Gaza and elsewhere, for decades”.
“The questions surrounding GHF – its funding sources and connection to the Trump Administration, its use of private contractors, its ability to serve and be seen as a neutral entity, its abandonment by its founders, and its basic competence in providing aid – must be answered before the State Department commits any funding to the organization,” Warren wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided exclusively to the Guardian.
The letter from Warren requested answers by 2 July on whether USAID is considering awarding any funds to the GHF, the terms of a possible agreement and the GHF’s connections to the Boston Consulting Group, which reportedly helped set up the group’s operations. BCG canceled its cooperation with the GHF after the organization was embroiled in controversy following a series of shootings by Israeli forces at its food distribution sites.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/senator-elizabeth-warren-demands-answers-160736319.html