Silence is Consent
“He was very emaciated. He had no shoes on, his pants were tattered, he had a kind of a rope or string holding his pants up. Filthy. Probably hasn’t bathed in months, probably hasn’t eaten in days…”
“He puts out his hand, and so I beckoned him to come to me. I said, ‘Come here.’ And he reaches out and he holds my hand, and he kisses my hand and he says, ‘Shukran’ (thank you).
He “didn’t make it home. He walked 12 kilometers to get some food, picked up scraps off the ground cause that’s all that was left…and when he left, he was killed by the IDF” (Israeli Defense Forces).
This is an eyewitness account of a young Palestinian boy seeking food at one of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) food distribution sites. This story has been in the news recently and is an example of numerous similar incidents occurring at the four GHF distribution sites.
This story is not being told by an anti-Israel foreign NGO worker or some liberal journalist sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Andrew Aguilar is a retired Lt. Colonel with 25 years in the Army Special Forces (Green Berets) and is a combat veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He worked briefly as a subcontractor for UG Solutions (a security company that is a subcontractor of GHF). He says this story is one of numerous similar incidents he saw during his 45 days working in Gaza at the GHF food distribution sites.
In an interview on Democracy Now, Aguilar says “What I saw on the sites, around the sites, to and from the sites, can be described as nothing but war crimes, crimes against humanity, violations of international law. This is not hyperbole. This is not platitudes or drama. This is the truth…We, the United States, are complicit. We are involved, hand in hand, in the atrocities and the genocide that is currently undergoing in Gaza.”
Aguilar quit the lucrative job because, “I could no longer be a part of this unethical, inhumane operation.” Aguilar’s blunt, passionate assessment of the situation in Gaza is essential for all of us to know.
In May Israel (with U.S. support) turned over all aid distribution to the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. All other aid organizations, including the United Nations, were banned from Gaza. The number of aid sites dropped from 400 to four. All four are in southern Gaza and located, according to Andrew Aguilar, in “war zones.”
The United Nations says since May 1300 unarmed Palestinians have been killed and many more wounded seeking food at the four GHF sites. Numerous sources, including Andrew Aguilar, say the IDF and GHF security contractors routinely fire indiscriminately at Palestinians coming and going from the aid sites.
News reports quote U.N humanitarian aid experts as saying “The GHF, a non-governmental organization created by Israel in February 2025, with US support, to allegedly distribute aid in Gaza, is an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law…”
Andrew Aguilar’s assessment is, “…the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is not trained, equipped, manned or staffed to run humanitarian aid and humanitarian assistance of this magnitude. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation needs to be defunded, shut down, and the United Nations needs to be allowed back in, in full scale, supported by the United States, resourced, helped. Instead of giving the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation $60 million, use that $60 million to support the United Nations…to feed 2.1 million people every day.”
An aside: You may wonder why this assessment by an Army Lt. Colonel should have credibility. It is because most military officers of his rank have considerable experience in planning and managing complex operations, thousands of personnel and millions worth of equipment and supplies. Our military has many faults, but it also has many competent individuals with valuable experience and skills.
Israel is using GHF to continue its ethnic cleansing of of Gaza. Starving the population is just another tactic to get the Palestinians to flee Palestine. The latest Israeli, publicly announced plan for Gaza is proof. The plan involves mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza by forcing them out of Gaza City in the north to refugee camps in the south of Gaza (euphemistically called “safe zones”).
The long term plan for Gaza calls for establishing a “non-Israeli peaceful civil administration” that would not include either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority (the nominal civil government of the West Bank). Israel will maintain “overriding security control.”
Clearly the two-state solution with the Palestinians having their own country is not going to happen. The occupation and apartheid will continue with no justice for the Palestinian people.
News reports out of Israel indicate increasing numbers of Israelis recognize that the plan for Gaza will not produce peace or security for anyone. Tens-of-thousands have been protesting the continuation to the war. A recent poll says 74% of Israelis want a negotiated settlement. The IDF Chief of Staff and other senior military officers oppose the Gaza plan. Current military reservists and 200 retired Air Force pilots have publicly spoken against expanding the war to take military control of Gaza City. But the genocide goes on.
Our country continues to provide unqualified support for Israel and the war. Our government claims there is no starvation or genocide in Gaza and Israel has a “right to defend itself” regardless of the facts on the ground. We should be ashamed.
Andrew Aguilar says, “Right now America is on a dangerous road. And if we don’t stop now, end this and back the humanitarian aid process that should be going into Gaza, shame on us…we are losing our humanity…It’s un-American. It’s not in line with our values…I’m a patriotic American that wants the American people to know the truth of what we are involved in…”
It is easy to become complacent in these times of unprecedented outrage. I find myself experiencing “disaster fatigue” and not wanting to hear the news. Protesting and taking action seem futile. We all must avoid letting the anger and shame affect our mental and physical well being. But we also must remember that complacency in the face of genocide is complicity. By your silence you give your consent.