There is a problem with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. As weaponized starvation continues in Gaza, the GHF was founded in May as a partnership between Israel and the U.S., with a mission to provide humanitarian aid through private companies. This differs from UN-backed aid, not controlled by any one political entity, which Israel has blocked from entering the region. But distribution of food and crucial supplies has proved deadly; in recent weeks, reports have come out that Israeli soldiers have been ordered to shoot Gazans seeking aid at distribution centers, and according to the UN, at least 400 people have been killed at distribution sites since GHF began operating in late May. “This system is a slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid, and it must be immediately dismantled,” Doctors Without Borders wrote in a statement.
Meanwhile, Shahar Segal, an Israeli businessman and owner of several restaurants, including one with a Michelin star, is now serving as its spokesperson. NPR reports, citing an anonymous source “familiar with GHF activities,” that Segal was approached to “project the image that the initiative has nutritional value for Gazans.”
Segal is a director, entrepreneur, and the business partner of chef Eyal Shani, who together run an international restaurant group called the “Good People Group.” They have opened over 40 restaurants in Israel, Europe, and across the U.S. in New York, Las Vegas, Dallas, and Miami — including Miznon, Hasalon, and the Michelin-starred Shmoné. A press release for Hasalon states that chef Shani has “established himself as the founding father of Israeli cuisine.”
As NPR reports, Segal now serves as the GHF mouthpiece, speaking on behalf of the organization in Israeli media, and sending “daily updates about the Gaza food project from his base in New York.” He told NPR via text: “I believe this is the only correct and possible way to deliver food to Gazans without bankrolling Hamas’s terror machine. It’s crystal clear.” Eater has reached out to Segal for further comment.
In an interview with the Forward, Shani, who skipped a Michelin ceremony to cook for IDF soldiers on the Gaza border, says he didn’t know of his business partner’s involvement with GHF until the press began asking him for comment. “I called Shahar, and I told him, ‘What would you like me to do with that information?’ He said to me, ‘leave it.’ So I left it,” he says. However, he believes “the only thing [Segal] wants is to improve the world.”
It might seem like a restaurant owner would be an odd choice for a spokesperson for an organization distributing aid, but these are both exercises in branding. “In an interview about a year and a half ago with journalist Erel Segal, [Shahar Segal] claimed that Hamas ‘is defeating you with their story, and the only way you can really fight them is to fight their story,’” writes Nissan Shor in an op-ed for Haaretz. Segal is in the business of storytelling, inviting diners into the world of Israeli cuisine; often those narratives across the culinary landscape lack mention of the Palestinian origins of many Israeli ingredients. Now, Segal is in the business of telling a story of Israel and the U.S. coming together to feed Gaza.
Hani Almadhoun, brother of Mahmoud Almadhoun, the founder of Gaza Soup Kitchen who was killed in an Israeli drone attack, is calling for a boycott of Segal’s restaurants. “He’s the U.S. face of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a fake aid group that exists to block real help while pretending to care,” Almadhoun wrote on Facebook, noting his brother was killed while attempting to feed the same population. “Now Shahar Segal and Eyal Shani want to claim they’re the humanitarians? Absolutely not.”
In May, the WHO reported that all 2.1 million people in Gaza are experiencing food shortages, with around a quarter of those suffering from acute malnutrition, starvation, or other illness due to a deliberate withholding of aid, a war crime. The GHF is not an NGO, but a private organization run by the company Safe Reach Solutions, which allegedly has little experience conducting sensitive international affairs. “The company’s website, which appears to have been registered in 2024 and created in 2025, contains almost no specific information on the organization’s activities, funding or staff members,” reports the New York Times. To date, their “our team” website section still provides no specific personnel.
GHF argues that its distribution sites are run with Israeli defense to prevent Hamas from accessing aid, but the result is that Gazans are targeted and killed for attempting to access food. “If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot,” says Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, an emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders. “If they arrive on time, but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot. If they arrive late, they shouldn’t be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone,’ so they get shot.”
In early July, Haaretz journalist Liza Rozovsky wrote that the UN claims the foundation’s aid has not “helped” Hamas (whatever that means), as GHF contends. “The GHF [argues] that the aid definitely helps Hamas, since it is the de facto ruler on the ground. Israel, according to the UN, has not provided proof of this,” writes Rozovsky. “The GHF’s spokesman to Israeli media, Shahar Segal, has said he would provide evidence that UN aid has reached Hamas, but has not yet done so.”
