'We will not be shut down,' says GHF Chief of US-backed Gaza aid group

The head of a controversial US- and Israel-backed food distribution effort in Gaza insisted Wednesday the program would not be shut down, as he denied that Palestinians had been killed at its sites.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an officially US-based private charity with opaque funding, began operations on May 26 after Israel halted supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking mass famine warnings.

The organisation has been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people desperate to get food.

The U.N. and major aid groups have refused to work with it, saying it serves Israeli military goals and violates basic humanitarian principles.

GHF's chairman Johnnie Moore, a Christian evangelical leader allied to U.S. President Donald Trump, rebuffed calls from a raft of NGOs for the efforts to be closed.

"We will not be shut down. We have one job to do. It's very simple, every day to provide free food to the people of Gaza. That's it," he told journalists in Brussels.

Moore said Wednesday that GHF had delivered more than a million boxes of foodstuffs since it began operations.

The U.N. human rights office said last week that since GHF began operating, "the Israeli military has shelled and shot Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points, leading to many fatalities."

The World Health Organization's chief said Friday that in the previous two weeks, 500 people had been killed "at non-U.N. militarised food-distribution sites".

The same day, the medical charity MSF (Doctors Without Borders) said that "every day, MSF teams see patients who have been killed or wounded trying to get food at one of these sites" and called for the scheme to be "immediately dismantled".

But Moore denied that there had been any Palestinians killed in or close to GHF's four distribution sites.

"We have not had a single violent incident in our distribution sites. We haven't had a violent incident in close proximity to our distribution sites," he said.

Moore said an announcement Wednesday from Swiss authorities that they were closing his group's Geneva branch "has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the future of GHF operation".

Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Wednesday it was discussing proposals for a Gaza ceasefire received from mediators, after Trump said Israel backed a 60-day ceasefire in the war-ravaged territory.

Moore said his organisation remained intent on continuing work in Gaza if a ceasefire is agreed.

"We have no intention, unless we're forced to do so somehow, we have no intention at all to abandon these people," he said.