A probe by the Financial Times has revealed a US consultancy firm's involvement in an Israeli and US scheme in Gaza that has led to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians and sought to engineer the mass relocation of Gaza’s population under the guise of aid coordination.
The investigation revealed on Saturday that the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) helped design and run the aid distribution scheme and modeled a plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza.
According to the report, the BCG, which previously denied involvement in the the scandal-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution scheme, contracted to perform more than $4 million worth of work over seven months.
More than a dozen BCG staff worked directly on the project — dubbed “Aurora” — between October and late May, it added.
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The BCG also built a financial model for the postwar reconstruction of Gaza, which included cost estimates for relocating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the besieged territory.
It estimated more than 500,000 Gazans would leave with “relocation packages” worth $9,000 per person.
The BCG also estimated the cost of forced expulsion of Palestinians to be $23,000 cheaper, per Palestinian, than the costs of providing support to them in Gaza during reconstruction.
GHF has been tasked by the Israeli regime and the US government to distribute aid in Gaza since late May.
Its operations, however, have been stymied by chaotic scenes and daily reports of Israeli forces firing on aid seekers waiting to collect rations from GHF installations.
More than 500 Palestinians have been killed and almost 4,000 injured while trying to access or distribute food from GHF installations.
A recent report by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers as saying they had received orders to fire at Palestinian aid seekers to “disperse” them.
The US-backed aid plan has been widely criticized for its unfair and inadequate distribution system.
Analysts, activists, and aid agencies have described the US-Israeli plan for aid relief in Gaza as a "mockery" of humanitarian law.
International aid agencies have already warned that Israeli plans to control aid distribution in Gaza, including the US-backed proposal, will only add to the suffering in the devastated Palestinian territory.
