On the same day Gaza health officials reported that at least 20 Palestinians died of malnutrition in the Strip’s hospitals over the past two days, the American official in charge of delivering food amid Israel’s restriction of aid declared his program a success.

“We’ve been filling a massive gap in a way that’s direct to the people, that prioritizes the security of the situation in this very complex environment,” said Johnnie Moore, the chair of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, on Tuesday during an event hosted by the American Jewish Congress and joined by the World Zionist Organization. “And despite what you may read in the press and the criticism that you hear from the United Nations and other institutions, what we’re doing has actually been unbelievably effective.”

As Palestinians continue to starve to death in Gaza, Moore, an evangelical minister and former religious adviser to the Trump administration, has spent the past several weeks defending his organization’s work. He’s appeared on mainstream TV news outlets and in interviews with pro-Israel podcasts. He and his foundation have messaged in lockstep with the Israeli government, as both cast blame on Hamas officials and the international community for a famine of Israel’s creation.

Israel has blockaded humanitarian aid from entering Gaza since March, when the Israeli government acknowledged it was weaponizing hunger to pressure Hamas into total disarmament — a plan that even U.S. officials have said is untenable. When the GHF took over aid distribution in the Strip in late May, Israeli troops began routinely opening fire on starving Palestinians waiting for food. As of this week, Israeli troops have shot and killed more than 1,000 people trying to get food: 766 near GHF aid sites, and 288 near aid convoys run by the United Nations and other organizations, according to the U.N.

Moore repeatedly blamed the U.N. for choosing “politics … over the needs of these people,” during Tuesday’s event. He claimed the U.N had failed to deliver “thousands upon thousands of pallets” of aid already inside Gaza. The Israeli government has made the same argument in recent weeks, releasing video and photos of supposedly dormant stockpiles to advance a narrative that the U.N.-led system is broken.

A GHF spokesperson echoed Moore’s comments in a statement to The Intercept.

“The false and exaggerated statistics from the UN seem to come directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry. The deadliest attacks on aid distribution in Gaza since late May have been linked to UN convoys. That is a fact,” the spokesperson wrote. “The truth is violence is around all aid efforts and instead of hurling insults from the sidelines, the UN needs to get in the game and start delivering aid.”

On Wednesday, GHF publicly........

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