US Consultancy Firm Involved in Gaza Aid Scheme Modelled Plans to Forcibly Displace Palestinians: New Probe

Gaza (Quds News Network)- A consulting firm involved in the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to develop the aid scheme and modelled a plan to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, a Financial Times investigation has revealed.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) helped design and run the aid scheme. In June, it announced it disavowed its involvement in the project, claiming that it had initially provided “pro bono support” for the project, but two senior partners that led the work “failed to disclose” its full nature and had subsequently carried out “unauthorised work” on the project.

It said that the partners have since been fired and an investigation has been launched into the firm’s involvement in the scheme.

However, according to the report, citing people familiar with the project, stretching over seven months, covering more than $4mn of contracted work and involving internal discussion at senior levels of the firm, the BCG were more enmeshed with the scheme than the firm has publicly acknowledged.

More than a dozen BCG staff worked directly on the evolving project — codenamed “Aurora” — between October and late May. Senior figures at BCG discussed the initiative, including the firm’s chief risk officer and the head of its social impact practice.

The BCG team also built a financial model for the postwar reconstruction of Gaza, which included cost estimates for “relocating” hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the strip and the economic impact of such a mass displacement.

One scenario estimated more than 500,000 Gazans would leave the enclave with “relocation packages” worth $9,000 per person, or around $5bn in total.

BCG said the senior figures were repeatedly misled on the scope of the work by the partners running the project.

Referring to the work on postwar Gaza, BCG said: “The lead partner was categorically told no, and he violated this directive. We disavow this work.”

BCG told the Financial Times that the work carried out was “in direct violation of our policies and processes”. “We stopped the work, exited the two partners who led it, took no fees and launched an independent investigation. We are taking steps to ensure this never happens again.”

The militarised aid system in Gaza is staffed by US private security contractors and guarded Israeli forces, who have killed more than 700 aid seekers near or at GHF sites since the scandal-plagued organization backed by the US and Israel and created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in Gaza, began operations in late May.

Most humanitarian organizations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques.

More than 130 charities and NGOs called last week for the closure of the controversial Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

“Today, Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” their statement said.

“Orphaned children and caregivers are among the dead, with children harmed in over half of the attacks on civilians at these sites.”

The aid organizations said GHF “is not a humanitarian response” for the Gazans.

“Amidst severe hunger and famine-like conditions, many families tell us they are now too weak to compete for food rations,” the groups said.

Palestinians in Gaza and the UN described these sites as “mass death traps” and “slaughterhouses”.

The project assumed a quarter of Palestinians would opt to leave Gaza, with three-quarters of them unlikely to return.

It estimated the cost of forced expulsion of Palestinians to be $23,000 cheaper, per Palestinian, than the costs of providing support to them in Gaza during reconstruction.

The revelations also raise questions about BCG’s involvement in developing the security aspect of the initiative.

According to sources familiar with the early stages of BCG’s work on the initiative, the firm was initially contracted by Washington-based security contractor Orbis to develop a feasibility study for a new aid operation on behalf of the Tachlith Institute, an Israeli think tank.

BCG was chosen for the project because of its connections with Phil Reilly, a 29-year veteran of the CIA who worked at Orbis. He was a senior adviser to BCG’s defence practice where the two fired partners, Matt Schlueter and Ryan Ordway, worked.

Reilly dropped his advisory role with BCG and went on to found Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), a private military company which became the main security provider for the GHF. According to the report, half a dozen staff shifted to “more detailed business planning” for the SRS and GHF.

This work was helmed by the US defence practice, while the initial pro-bono phase was billed to BCG’s social impact practice helmed by Rich Hutchinson.
By January, the BCG was contracted by McNally Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm which owns Orbis, to plan GHF’s ground operations from Tel Aviv.

The SRS signed an initial contract with the group worth over $1m to cover eight weeks of work to develop SRS’s operations in Gaza, with travel approvals given by officials in BGC’s risk management operation.

The group told the Financial Times that it was “pleased to have supported the establishment of SRS as an important step toward meeting the full scope of the humanitarian need in Gaza”.

Funding sources for both GHF and SRS remain unclear. Both are registered in US tax havens, with scant details available in public records.

A source previously told the Financial Times that the GHF had been pledged $100m from a country they refused to name.

Reuters reported on Friday that UBS and Goldman Sachs declined to open bank accounts for the GHF, with the foundation’s lack of transparency over its funding cited as being one of the main stumbling blocks in the discussions with the banks.

A GHF spokesperson said it has “spoken about initial funding from Europe, but we don’t disclose donors for their privacy”.

In response to the revelations, the Gaza Government Media Office said the GHF is “an American-Israeli scheme to forcibly displace the Palestinian people under a deceptive humanitarian guise.”