LAST month, The New Humanitarian published an investigation into Israel-approved aid groups scaling up in the Gaza Strip while Israeli authorities attempt to push out established actors. Among the investigation’s findings was that a cluster of related NGOs had donated equipment and goods to the Israeli military (IDF) – including one that donated to units accused of war crimes – and to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The same organisations were also among several working in parts of southwestern Syria occupied by Israeli forces since late 2024.
Since our investigation was published on 11 February, one of the organisations in question, Helping Hand Coalition (HHC), has deleted and edited at least 20 online posts or videos, most of which contained evidence of donations it made to Israeli soldiers and illegal settlements in the West Bank.
HHC is an Israeli partner of the evangelical Christian charity Global Aid Network (GAiN), whose German chapter is registered with Israeli authorities to work in Gaza. The deleted and edited content includes information stating that items donated to Israeli soldiers and illegal settlements were provided to HHC by GAiN. HHC has also removed content that mentions GAiN’s work in Israeli-occupied Syria.
GAiN Germany and HHC are closely linked. Their staff have worked together for years, and some of the same people hold leadership positions in both organisations. GAiN Germany’s founder and president, Klaus Dewald – a senior figure in the group’s Gaza operations – is a co-founder of HHC and sits on HHC’s board. GAiN and HHC also partnered to form GAiN Israel, which is headed by HHC board chair Andrzej Gasiorowski.
The deleted content, which The New Humanitarian has archived, includes photos of extremist Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir at a February 2024 event at which items donated by GAiN were given by HHC to soldiers returning from Gaza. The UK has sanctioned Ben-Gvir for inciting violence against Palestinians, and the Netherlands has banned him from entering.
GAiN has denied that items it donated have been provided to members of the Israeli military – a claim that is contradicted by photos and other evidence being scrubbed.
“You’re not supposed to be following the orders of an illegal occupying power.”
Shahd Hammouri, an expert in international law at the University of Kent in the UK, said that international NGOs working in occupied territory – whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or Syria – need to be careful about how they engage with occupying authorities.
If aid work is directed by those authorities and does not follow standard humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence, then those organisations risk enabling international law violations by effectively working as service providers for an occupying power, which could open up legal liability.
“If you are an international organisation and you are perpetuating a system that weaponises aid, then you are no longer acting as a charity,” Hammouri said. “You’re not supposed to be following the orders of an illegal occupying power.”
??In a statement in response to The New Humanitarian’s questions, GAiN spokesperson Lucas Wörpel wrote: “We strongly reject any accusation of partiality.”
GAiN and HHC have previously told The New Humanitarian that they “are not politically aligned with, directed by, or acting on behalf of any government or military authority”.
Aid to Israeli soldiers
GAiN is one of 27 organisations now registered with Israeli authorities to work in Gaza under a new law that critics say allows Israeli authorities to silence humanitarian advocacy and ban international NGOs at will. Thirty-seven aid organisations – including nearly all established non-UN aid groups working in Gaza – were set to be banned at the end of February, until the Israeli Supreme Court temporarily froze the decision.
Israeli authorities have cited the presence of a largely new cohort of groups that have agreed to the terms of the new law as proof that Israel is fulfilling its legal obligation to enable aid, and have argued that these groups can pick up the slack as they kick out bigger, more outspoken organisations.
UN data shows that GAiN and an associated group, Poland-based Fundacja Czas Wolnosci, or Time of Freedom (TOF), are both among the top six NGOs in terms of trucks brought into Gaza since the October 2025 ceasefire. HHC is not directly involved in the Gaza aid response, although several organisations – including GAiN and TOF – that share staff and leadership are.
After the February 2024 event with Ben-Gvir was mentioned in The New Humanitarian’s reporting, a post on HHC’s website about it was substantially edited to remove most of the text, including a statement that goods provided to soldiers were donated by GAiN Germany and GAiN Poland. All but one of the photos from the post were deleted, including mentions and photos of Ben-Gvir and a note from HHC and its partners – including GAiN – thanking soldiers “for their fantastic service and sacrifice”.
A statement was added to the post noting, “GAiN (Germany and Poland) was not involved in, did not organise, and did not participate in this event”, and that the donations to soldiers “were conducted independently and without GAiN’s operational coordination, authorisation, or representation”.
In GAiN’s statement to The New Humanitarian, Wörpel wrote: “We have clarified the issues raised with our Israeli staff and our partner and reconfirmed GAiN policy to not provide aid supplies to military or armed forces.”
He added, “The relief supplies for the event mentioned were not donated by GAiN. We know that HHC has other partners who provide the organisation with resources.”
GAiN Israel president and HHC board chair Andrzej Gasiorowski also provided a statement, speaking on behalf of HHC, which contradicted photos and other statements previously shared by his organisation. He reiterated that items donated to soldiers at the February 2024 event, “were not donated by GAiN”, and wrote: “We are not in a position to comment on the source of those particular supplies.”
He added that the event “appears to have been organised” by the “Israeli Association of Science, Culture, and Education”. A similarly named organisation is affiliated with HHC. The head of that group shared a post about the February 2024 event and named Gasiorowski as an organiser.
Other edited and deleted posts
Now-deleted photos from HHC show identical backpacks were also donated about a week later to “security forces nationwide”. The March 2024 post showed a soldier in an Israeli military uniform next to boxes of food and other goods with GAiN’s logo.
A similar backpack is visible in another HHC post, which has also been edited to remove mentions of GAiN, describing donations of items from GAiN Germany in July 2024 to the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.
In response to a question about the March 2024 photos, Wörpel wrote: “We understand the confusion about these posts. We clarified this with our partner, reconfirmed the GAiN policy to not provide aid supplies to military or armed forces and revised our communication.”
Gasiorowski wrote: “Photographs showing boxes or packaging bearing a logo do not necessarily indicate that the items distributed at a particular event originated from that organisation, particularly in environments where multiple organisations, logistics partners, and community donations may be involved.”
He added, “The presence of individuals wearing military uniforms in photographs does not necessarily indicate that the items were donated to military personnel.”
According to the original post, the delivery was organised in coordination with Geva Sagi, the former head of the Israeli teachers’ union, who paid for and set up the delivery of the GAiN-provided goods inside Israel. Sagi, a former battalion commander in the Israeli military, was convicted in 2003 and sentenced to community service for sexually abusing and threatening to kill a Palestinian prisoner, and using a woman as a human shield while searching a home, both while he was deployed in Bethlehem during Israel’s 2002 military operation in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement, Wörpel wrote that GAiN “cannot comment on this, as the person is not affiliated with GAiN”. Gasiorowski said he could not comment on someone “not affiliated with GAiN or HHC”. The original post identified Sagi as a member of the Helping Hand Coalition Global Forum, which is HHC’s international arm.
Another deleted post described the November 2023 arrival in Israel of a three-truck GAiN convoy from Germany, including a truck driven by Dewald. The post said the goods were donated to civilians and “IDF soldiers”.
The post also showed Dewald and other senior GAiN figures posing with Luke Gasiorowski, who is HHC’s executive director and a reservist in the Israeli military. Luke Gasiorowski was mobilised after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks and is Andrzej Gasiorowski’s son. In the photos, the younger Gasiorowski was wearing an Israeli military uniform and carrying a rifle. Photos and video posted by HHC show him visiting Gaza with GAiN and with GAiN officials at the US and Israel-backed aid coordination centre for Gaza (CMCC).
In a statement to The New Humanitarian in February, Andrzej Gasiorowski said, “Individuals who are mobilised in reserve or national service roles do not perform humanitarian functions during such periods”. Luke Gasiorowski did not reply to a request for comment.
In another now-edited social media post, Andrzej Gasiorowski said Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), the US military contractor accused of killing Palestinian civilians at militarised food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in 2025, was involved in coordinating a GAiN convoy in October 2025.
The post was edited to remove the mention of SRS after The New Humanitarian contacted Gasiorowski for comment. In written comments, he said the post had included “incorrect information”, and that GAiN denies having had any connection to SRS. Both SRS and GHF have denied war crimes allegations.
Work in Israeli-occupied Syria
Other now-deleted content posted on HHC’s website and social media, and on Andrzej Gasiorowski’s own social media, showed GAiN and TOF’s work in the West Bank and on Israeli military-coordinated trips to Druze communities in parts of Syria occupied by Israel since late 2024.
This includes a January 2026 post, edited to remove all but one mention of GAiN and photos showing the organisation’s logo on a container truck next to a combination Israeli-Druze-German flag. The following text was also removed: “Humanitarian aid to our Druze brothers in Syria is a strategic asset for the State of Israel, which seeks justice and peace.”
In GAiN’s statement to The New Humanitarian, Wörpel said the banner was “attached to the truck without our consent… GAiN distances itself from the statement on this banner and is pleased that the relief supplies reached their destination”.
In social media posts, Gasiorowski has described some deliveries of GAiN goods to Syria as having been carried out “at the request” of the Israeli military. He told The New Humanitarian in February that this did not imply “direction, control, or implementation by any military authority”, but that the military “identified opportunities for humanitarian access or conveyed civilian needs, and enabled secure passage or logistical clearance”.
In a more recent statement, he said: “We are not working at the direction of occupying authorities but are motivated by humanity and the suffering of the people in those mentioned regions. To ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid, cooperation between humanitarian actors and local authorities responsible for border crossings or security checks is essential. This does not mean that humanitarian organisations act as service providers for others.”
GAiN’s operations in Gaza have been suspended since January after smuggling accusations by Israeli authorities, who claimed first to have found cigarettes and later oil in GAiN cargo bound for Gaza. GAiN has said its employees were not involved in or aware of smuggling. Gasiorowski said in his statement to The New Humanitarian on 13 March that GAiN expects to be allowed to resume operations in Gaza “in the next few days”, and that the organisation would decide whether to resume “depending on its assessments of humanitarian need”.
Edited by Eric Reidy.
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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.
