WASHINGTON, DC — Yesterday was the most tragic and deadly day since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating six weeks ago.
By day’s end, Dr. Johnnie Moore — GHF’s chairman and a prominent American Evangelical Christian who has spent years crisscrossing the Arab/Muslim world to build bridges of peace and reconciliation — sat down with ALL ARAB NEWS.
We discussed what happened, why Hamas, the United Nations, and so many other actors are working to defeat and destroy GHF, and GHF’s impressive record of success despite such withering political, media, and terrorist attacks.
Moore told my wife, Lynn, and me that he and his team are grieving the deaths of at least 20 Palestinians who died — and the others who were injured — in a security incident at a food distribution site run by GHF.
He told us that GHF has credible reason to believe that elements within the crowd — both members of Hamas and others armed and connected to Hamas — were intentionally trying to create unrest and spark a panic.
At this point, we know that 19 people were trampled to death and one was fatally stabbed after huge crowds of people became panicked — possibly by Hamas gunfire — and began stampeding out of a GHF center in southern Gaza.
The United Nations — which is demanding that the international community restore to the UN the role of aid distribution in Gaza — “has called the GHF’s model unsafe and a breach of humanitarian impartiality,” a French news service reported.
That’s an allegation that Moore emphatically denies.
Here’s my conversation with Moore, lightly edited for clarity.
ROSENBERG: Johnnie, it’s been a rough day for GHF. What can you tell us?
JOHNNIE MOORE: Well, yes — this has been the most difficult day. I mean, the one thing we’re there for is to make sure people live. That’s why we’re there every single day. We’re there to feed people so they live. And it has become apparent throughout the day that this was not an accidental incident. This was an incident provoked by nefarious actors that are linked to Hamas — or directly Hamas — with the intention of seeing civilians killed at our distribution sites.
So, we’re mourning today. We’re also learning from it. Are there ways that we can catch these threats earlier so it doesn’t turn into something like this?
It also, by the way, is the only time something like this has happened at a distribution site. I mean, if you read the press — the BBC or the Associated Press — you would believe that there have been daily civilian casualties at our sites. That is not the case. This is the only time it has happened. And yet, it is absolutely devastating. I mean, we exist so people can live.
ROSENBERG: And the reason people are thinking that there are all these attacks is because Hamas is attributing almost any Palestinian death anywhere near a distribution facility as proof that GHF is not able to do its job — not able to provide security?
JOHNNIE MOORE: Yeah. From the very beginning of this war, daily death statistics have been issued by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry. But we know a few things about those statistics. We know that they don’t distinguish between civilians and militants. We know those statistics are not accurate. It’s not that there aren’t deaths every day — there are deaths in Gaza. This is the most deadly place on the planet. It’s a very small piece of land. People are condensed in small places. It’s a hot war. It’s very, very easy to get caught in the crossfire in this conflict.
But when GHF started operating, we noticed that Hamas started attributing basically all deaths in the Gaza Strip to GHF, which was insane. Like, it’s a total fabrication. We don’t deny that there have been civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip during our operation, and that there have been civilian casualties of people trying to get aid. Most of those casualties have been at the hands of Hamas — either killing people because they want to disincentivize them from getting our aid, or in order to falsely attribute those deaths to something happening at a site. They’ve done this on days we weren’t even operating. And the IDF has admitted, you know, they have made mistakes and there have been civilian casualties — but those are, as best as we can tell, a very small number. One is too many. We want everyone to live. We want to feed everyone that we can. But people need to be discerning.
There’s a report that just came out from the Rutgers University National Contagion Research Institute, and they have something called the Social Perception Lab. It analyzed about 50 of the most viral stories about GHF — of those most viral stories by the top media outlets in the world, 80% included information from Hamas. And this is information that can’t be verified. We know it’s part of the information war. But worse, 50% of those stories didn’t even say the information was from Hamas. They referred to “officials in Gaza” or “sources say,” that sort of thing — and it’s all just profane. I mean, it’s playing games — for political or war purposes — with people’s lives.
ROSENBERG: The reason Hamas seems to have trained their sights on you, on the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — even to the point that we are hearing that in the hostage negotiations, Hamas is trying to get the Trump administration to say, “Okay, let’s turn all this [aid distribution work] back over to the UN” — the reason Hamas is attacking you guys on all sides is because you’ve been so successful, right?
JOHNNIE MOORE: Yeah — I mean, in the end, the work speaks for itself.
ROSENBERG: Can you just take a snapshot of where we are today? In terms of the successes — how many meals have been distributed, and what’s the story that most people aren’t hearing?
JOHNNIE MOORE: We’re now close to 80 million meals of food that have been distributed in the Gaza Strip.
ROSENBERG: How long have you been operating?
JOHNNIE MOORE: We started six weeks ago. Our beneficiaries are over 800,000 Gazans. It could now be close to a million. So we’ve touched almost half the Gazans with our distribution sites. This is many, many tens of thousands of boxes of food every day.
So ultimately, despite all the disinformation and all the criticism and the pain of doing this work — and how hard it is and all the threats and all the risks and everything else — ultimately the net result speaks for itself. 80 million meals of food in the Gaza Strip that otherwise would not have been there. But it’s there because these Americans show up every day with these brave Gazan local workers, and they just feed people.
And now we have successfully created a program to deliver food deeper into the Gaza Strip, working with local Gazans to get food to those who need it and can’t get to our distribution sites. And if we had the opportunity, we would serve every single person in the Gaza Strip — every civilian we possibly can.
ROSENBERG: Last question, just because of your time. What are the main ways that Christians can be praying for you, Johnnie, and for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the work that you’re doing?
JOHNNIE MOORE: Today is a stark reminder of the need to pray for safety, for security.
You know, as Christians, we love everyone. We love the Gazans. We love the Israelis. We care about these people. And there are a lot of people who have been caught in this war. I believe those responsible for it — the war, the death and suffering — are Hamas. It’s Hamas that hasn’t agreed to the ceasefire. It’s not the Israelis. The Israelis have kept conceding to the demands of the various parties. It’s Hamas that hasn’t agreed to make concessions or a final agreement. It’s Hamas that started the war. It’s Hamas that victimized the people of Gaza long before October 7th. I’ve said in the past that the first victims of Hamas have always been the Gazan people. I believe that so much more today than I did in the past, because we interact with these people every day. And one of the things we’re discovering is these people feel free when the food is no longer controlled by their oppressors.
That’s what’s so profane about the way the international community is opposed to us. They’re not on the side of the Gazan people. They’re on the side of those who oppress the Gazan people.
And every day, we see something which has become exceedingly rare in the Gaza Strip — we see smiles on the faces of people we’ve gotten to know, who we’re helping. It’s not enough. We’re not perfect. We are far from perfect. But we are honest. We say what’s happening. We say what’s working. We say what isn’t working. And we press on — and we’re going to keep pressing on as long as we can.
You know, we don’t decide whether we operate or not in the Gaza Strip. Other people have to make those decisions. And if we have the privilege of continuing in this very, very difficult environment, we’ll just keep feeding as many people as we can — and hopefully do more for people later on, when the war is over. If we have the privilege of doing it, we’ll still be there to help.
ROSENBERG: Well, we’re continuing to pray. We’re going to keep mobilizing others to pray, because when a terrorist organization is working so hard to stop an independent organization that’s fed 80 million meals in six weeks — well, you know, that is a satanic approach to rob, kill, and destroy people, not to provide basic food and services, which Hamas originally said they would be in charge of. They said [back in 2006] that they would take care of the people. But they’ve done everything to harm them.
You guys need a lot of prayer — because you’re under physical attack, military attack, but you’re also under such intense international media and political attack, to the point that there are forces trying right now to persuade the Trump administration, “Yeah, GHF isn’t needed.”
So, thank you for what you’re doing. And don’t grow weary in well-doing.
