US-backed Gaza relief agency appoints 'Christian Zionist' leader as new director

Rev. Johnnie Moore, a self-described “American evangelical Christian and hardline Zionist,” has been appointed the new executive director of the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Humanitarian organizations have widely condemned the aid program provided by the organization, whose origins and funding are unknown, in Gaza, describing it as insufficient to feed Gaza's needy population. Aid distribution points have become death traps, with many Palestinians seeking food being killed by Israeli forces while en route to relief sites.

Due to the controversy surrounding the aid program, the foundation's former executive director, Jake Wood, resigned before the foundation began its work in Gaza. Wood stated, "It is clear that this plan cannot be implemented while strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon."

Moore defended the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in a series of posts on X.com, supporting Israel's claim that it was not responsible for Sunday's massacre of 31 aid seekers near a distribution point in Rafah, despite evidence to the contrary. He also expressed support for US President Donald Trump's proposal for US control of Gaza, which would involve the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians, a plan the Israeli government says it intends to implement.

"President Trump always looks at war through the lens of its human cost and thinks creatively—never constrained by conventional wisdom. He stops wars and makes peace," Moore said in a post on X, which included a video of Trump discussing his Gaza plan.

"The United States will bear full responsibility for Gaza's future, giving everyone hope and a future," Moore added.

Moore has served as an advisor to Trump, serving as a key conduit between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American evangelicals who support the displacement of the people of Gaza and the annexation of the occupied West Bank to Israel. He is considered a close friend of the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who repeats the Israeli narrative in every detail, as he did on Monday, when he stated that no Palestinians were killed or injured at the aid distribution center by the Israeli military or American contractors on Sunday, June 1, and accused prominent US media outlets of colluding with Hamas in spreading malicious rumors about the killing of Palestinian civilians.

Moore also condemned the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of war crimes in Gaza, describing it as a corrupt act by "anti-Semites." He also described Munther Isaac, a prominent Palestinian evangelical pastor living in Bethlehem, as the "high priest of anti-Semitic Christianity." His remarks came in response to Isaac's appearance on Tucker Carlson's show.