US contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammo as Palestinians
seek food in Gaza
[July 03, 2025]
By JULIA FRANKEL and SAM MEDNICK
BEERSHEBA, Israel (AP) — American contractors guarding aid distribution
sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry
Palestinians scramble for food, according to accounts and videos
obtained by The Associated Press.
Two U.S. contractors, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity
because they were revealing their employers’ internal operations, said
they were coming forward because they were disturbed by what they
considered dangerous and irresponsible practices. They said the security
staff hired were often unqualified, unvetted, heavily armed and seemed
to have an open license to do whatever they wished.
They said their colleagues regularly lobbed stun grenades and pepper
spray in the direction of the Palestinians. One contractor said bullets
were fired in all directions — in the air, into the ground and at times
toward the Palestinians, recalling at least one instance where he
thought someone had been hit.
"There are innocent people being hurt. Badly. Needlessly,” the
contractor said.
He said American staff on the sites monitor those coming to seek food
and document anyone considered “suspicious.” He said they share such
information with the Israeli military.
Videos provided by one of the contractors and taken at the sites show
hundreds of Palestinians crowded between metal gates, jostling for aid
amid the sound of bullets, stun grenades and the sting of pepper spray.
Other videos include conversation between English-speaking men
discussing how to disperse crowds and encouraging each other after
bursts of gunfire.
The testimonies from the contractors — combined with the videos,
internal reports and text messages obtained by the AP — offer a rare
glimpse inside the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the newly created,
secretive American organization backed by Israel to feed the Gaza
Strip’s population. Last month, the U.S. government pledged $30 million
for the group to continue operations — the first known U.S. donation to
the group, whose other funding sources remain opaque.
Journalists have been unable to access the GHF sites, located in Israeli
military-controlled zones. The AP cannot independently verify the
contractors' stories.
A spokesperson for Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics company
subcontracted by GHF, told the AP that there have been no serious
injuries at any of their sites to date. In scattered incidents, security
professionals fired live rounds into the ground and away from civilians
to get their attention. That happened in the early days at the “the
height of desperation where crowd control measures were necessary for
the safety and security of civilians,” the spokesperson said.
Aid operation is controversial
Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians are living through a
catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7,
2023, setting off the 21-month war, Israel has bombarded and laid siege
to the strip, leaving many teetering on the edge of famine, according to
food security experts.
For 2 1/2 months before GHF’s opening in May, Israel blocked all food,
water and medicine from entering Gaza, claiming Hamas was stealing the
aid being transported under a preexisting system coordinated by the
United Nations. It now wants GHF to replace that U.N. system. The U.N.
says its Gaza aid operations do not involve armed guards.
Over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the war erupted,
according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish
between civilians and militants.
GHF is an American organization, registered in Delaware and established
in February to distribute humanitarian aid during the ongoing Gaza
humanitarian crisis. Since the GHF sites began operating more than a
month ago, Palestinians say Israeli troops open fire almost every day
toward crowds on roads heading to the distribution points, through
Israeli military zones. Several hundred people have been killed and
hundreds more wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and
witnesses.
In response, Israel’s military says it fires only warning shots and is
investigating reports of civilian harm. It denies deliberately shooting
at any innocent civilians and says it’s examining how to reduce
“friction with the population” in the areas surrounding the distribution
centers.
AP's reporting for this article focuses on what is happening at the
sites themselves. Palestinians arriving at the sites say they are caught
between Israeli and American fire, said the contractor who shared videos
with the AP.
“We have come here to get food for our families. We have nothing,” he
recounted Palestinians telling him. “Why does the (Israeli) army shoot
at us? Why do you shoot at us?”
A spokesperson for the GHF said there are people with a “vested
interest” in seeing it fail and are willing to do or say almost anything
to make that happen. The spokesperson said the team is composed of
seasoned humanitarian, logistics and security professionals with deep
experience on the ground. The group says it has distributed the
equivalent of more than 50 million meals in Gaza in its food boxes of
staples.
GHF says that it has consistently shown compassionate engagement with
the people of Gaza.
Throughout the war, aid distribution has been marred by chaos. Gangs
have looted trucks of aid traveling to distribution centers and mobs of
desperate people have also offloaded trucks before they’ve reached their
destination. Earlier this month, at least 51 Palestinians were killed
and more than 200 wounded while waiting for the U.N. and commercial
trucks to enter the territory, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a
local hospital. Israel’s military acknowledged several casualties as
soldiers opened fire on the approaching crowd and said authorities would
investigate.
Videos, texts, internal reports document havoc at food sites
AP spoke to the two contractors for UG Solutions, an American outfit
subcontracted to hire security personnel for the distribution sites.
They said bullets, stun grenades and pepper spray were used at nearly
every distribution, even if there was no threat.
Videos of aid being dispensed at the sites seen by the AP appear to back
up the frenetic scenes the contractors described. The footage was taken
within the first two weeks of its distributions — about halfway into the
operations.
In one video, what appear to be heavily armed American security
contractors at one of the sites in Gaza discuss how to disperse
Palestinians nearby. One is heard saying he has arranged for a “show of
force” by Israeli tanks.
“I don’t want this to be too aggressive," he adds, "because this is
calming down.”
At that moment, bursts of gunfire erupt close by, at least 15 shots.
“Whoo! Whoo!” one contractor yelps.
“I think you hit one,” one says.
Then comes a shout: “Hell, yeah, boy!”
The camera's view is obscured by a large dirt mound.
The contractor who took the video told AP that he saw other contractors
shooting in the direction of Palestinians who had just collected their
food and were departing. The men shot both from a tower above the site
and from atop the mound, he said. The shooting began because contractors
wanted to disperse the crowd, he said, but it was unclear why they
continued shooting as people were walking away.
The camera does not show who was shooting or what was being shot at. But
the contractor who filmed it said he watched another contractor fire at
the Palestinians and then saw a man about 60 yards (meters) away — in
the same direction where the bullets were fired — drop to the ground.
This happened at the same time the men were heard talking — effectively
egging each other on, he said.
In other videos furnished by the contractor, men in grey uniforms —
colleagues, he said — can be seen trying to clear Palestinians who are
squeezed into a narrow, fenced-in passage leading to one of the centers.
The men fire pepper spray and throw stun grenades that detonate amid the
crowd. The sound of gunfire can be heard. The contractor who took the
video said the security personnel usually fire at the ground near the
crowds or from nearby towers over their heads.
During a single distribution in June, contractors used 37 stun grenades,
27 rubber-and-smoke “scat shell” projectiles and 60 cans of pepper
spray, according to internal text communications shared with the AP.
That count does not include live ammunition, the contractor who provided
the videos said.
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This photo, provided by an American contractor on condition of
anonymity because they were revealing their employers’ internal
operations, shows a woman slumped over in a donkey cart after the
contractor said she was hit in the head with part of a stun grenade
at a food distribution site in Gaza run by the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation in June 2025. (AP Photo)
One photo shared by that contractor shows a woman lying in a donkey
cart after he said she was hit in the head with part of a stun
grenade.
An internal report by Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics company
subcontracted by GHF to run the sites, found that aid seekers were
injured during 31% of the distributions that took place in a
two-week period in June. The report did not specify the number of
injuries or the cause. SRS told the AP the report refers to
non-serious injuries.
More videos show frenzied scenes of Palestinians running to collect
leftover food boxes at one site. Hundreds of young men crowd near
low metal barriers, transferring food from boxes to bags while
contractors on the other side of the barriers tell them to stay
back.
Some Palestinians wince and cough from pepper spray. “You tasting
that pepper spray? Yuck,” one man close to the camera can be heard
saying in English.
SRS acknowledged that it’s dealing with large, hungry populations,
but said the environment is secure, controlled, and ensures people
can get the aid they need safely.
Verifying the videos with audio analysis
To confirm the footage is from the sites, AP geolocated the videos
using aerial imagery. The AP also had the videos analyzed by two
audio forensic experts who said they could identify live ammunition
— including machine-gun fire — coming from the sites, in most cases
within 50 to 60 meters of the camera's microphone.
In the video where the men are heard egging each other on, the echo
and acoustics of the shots indicate they’re fired from a position
close to the microphone, said Rob Maher, a professor of electrical
and computer engineering at Montana State University and an author
and research expert in audio forensic analysis. Maher and the other
analyst, Steven Beck, owner of Beck Audio Forensics, said there was
no indication that the videos' audio had been tampered with.
The analysts said that the bursts of gunfire and the pop sequences
in some of the videos indicated that guns were panning in different
directions and were not repeatedly aimed at a single target. They
could not pinpoint exactly where the shots were coming from nor who
was shooting.
GHF says the Israeli military is not deployed at the aid
distribution sites. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said
the army is not stationed at the sites or within their immediate
proximity, especially during operating hours. He said they're run by
an American company and have their own security.
One of the contractors who had been on the sites said he'd never
felt a real or perceived threat by Hamas there.
SRS says that Hamas has openly threatened its aid workers and
civilians receiving aid. It did not specify where people were
threatened.
American analysts and Israeli soldiers work side by side,
contractors say
According to the contractor who took the videos, the Israeli army is
leveraging the distribution system to access information.
Both contractors said that cameras monitor distributions at each
site and that American analysts and Israeli soldiers sit in a
control room where the footage is screened in real time. The control
room, they said, is housed in a shipping container on the Israeli
side of the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The contractor who took the videos said some cameras are equipped
with facial recognition software. In live shots of the sites seen by
the AP, some videos streams are labeled “analytics" — those were the
ones that had the facial recognition software, said the contractor.
If a person of interest is seen on camera — and their information is
already in the system — their name and age pops up on the computer
screen, said the contractor. Israeli soldiers watching the screens
take notes and cross-check the analysts’ information with their own
drone footage from the sites, he said.
The contractor said he did not know the source of the data in the
facial recognition system. The AP could not independently verify his
information.
An internal SRS report from June seen by the AP said that its intel
team would circulate to staff a “POI Mugs Card,” that showed photos
of Palestinians taken at the sites who were deemed persons of
interest.
The contractor said he and other staff were told by SRS to
photograph anyone who looked “out of place.” But the criteria were
not specified, he said. The contractor said the photos were also
added to the facial recognition database. He did not know what was
done with the information.
SRS said accusations that it gathers intelligence are false and that
it has never used biometrics. It said it coordinates movements with
Israeli authorities, a requirement for any aid group in Gaza.
An Israeli security official who was not named in line with the
army's protocol, said there are no security screening systems
developed or operated by the army within the aid sites.
It was a rushed rollout, the contractors say
The several hundred contractors hired by UG Solutions landed in
Israel in mid-May, not long before the first GHF site opened on May
26.
The rollout was jumbled and lacked leadership, the two contractors
told the AP. Some of the men had been recruited only days prior via
email asking if they wanted to work in Gaza. Many had no combat
experience and were not properly trained in offensive weapons, they
said.
SRS did not provide the staff with draft rules of engagement until
three days after distributions started, they said. The draft rules,
seen by the AP, say deadly force may be used only under extreme
necessity and non-lethal weapons may be used in an extreme situation
on unarmed individuals who are physically violent.
The Palestinians seen in the videos don’t appear to be physically
aggressive. SRS says there have been occasional altercations at the
sites between aid seekers, but none have involved its staff.
Each contractor was equipped with a pistol, stun grenades, tear gas
and an Israeli-made automatic rifle capable of firing dozens of
rounds within seconds, said the contractor who took the videos.
In an email from May shared with the AP by a third party, one
high-ranking contractor wrote to the head of UG Solutions and called
the operation “amateur hour.” He wrote that the sites did not have
enough staff or resources making them “not sustainable” and “not
safe,” according to the email, seen by the AP.
The two contractors said none of the men in Israel working for UG
Solutions were tested to see if they could handle a gun safely. One
said the rushed rollout also meant not everyone could “zero” their
weapon — adjust it to one’s personal specifications to ensure proper
aim. Military experts say not zeroing a weapon poses a significant
risk.
A spokesperson for UG Solutions, Drew O’Brien, said UG has an
extensive recruiting and training process, including "a detailed
application process, screening by experts, reference checks,
background checks and weapons proficiency.” The group said it prides
itself on repeated quality control checks once missions are
underway.
O'Brien said the group was unaware of video showing gunfire from
someone believed to be a UG Solutions contractor. He said he
couldn't comment on the allegations without seeing the videos.
The two contractors warned that if the organization continues as is,
more lives will be at risk. “If operations continue in this manner,
innocent aid seekers will continue to be needlessly injured," said
the contractor who took the videos. “And possibly killed."
___
Associated Press reporter Josef Federman contributed.
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