US Democrats warn that controversial Gaza food organisation may be cover for intelligence operations

Senior Democratic senators have called on secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to reveal details behind the financing and oversight of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as concerns grow that the organization is acting as a front for intelligence and political operations.

The letter, co-signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch, accuses the state department of an “inability to answer basic questions about GHF in a timely manner” and said that the department’s “overriding of internal protocol and staff warnings is particularly concerning given it is unlikely to be able to conduct basic oversight of the funds it provided to GHF”.

The letter, which was addressed to Rubio, Huckabee and Russell Vought, the powerful director of the Office of Management and Budget and current administrator for the US Agency for International Development, was delivered to the state department over the weekend and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

“The State Department should immediately cease funding GHF and transfer or restore funding to experienced aid organizations given the strong and growing evidence that GHF is failing to accomplish its humanitarian mission,” they wrote.

Trump has said that the US disbursed $60m in food aid to Gaza, while the state department has only publicly acknowledged approval for a $30m grant for GHF in June. The state department has not published details of its grant to GHF, an omission that the senators said violates US law. Nearly 1,000 Palestinians had died near GHF sites since its operations began in May, the UN reported in mid-August.

The new concerns come as the agency was mentioned in a draft plan for a “Gaza Riviera” that critics have said would provide cover for the large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territory’s population and was reportedly developed by those close to GHF. The 38-page prospectus, which has not been formally adopted as US policy, nonetheless would be one way to fulfill Donald Trump’s calls for a “takeover” of the Gaza Strip.

The plan, which was first revealed by the Washington Post, also relied on consultants from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG has said that work was not approved and that it had fired two senior partners who led the financial modeling for the plan).

In their letter, the Democratic senators also attacked GHF for its connections to the Israeli government and intelligence services. “The provision of humanitarian aid to starving populations should not be a pretext for military intelligence operations,” they wrote.

In the letter, the senators also demanded copies of award documents, internal reviews, export licenses for military services and other vetting that is legally required for GHF operations but have not yet been made public.

The Guardian has approached the state department and GHF for comment.