Rev Johnnie Moore: ‘Because I’m a Christian’ – on why he’s leading the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

The humanitarian aid crisis in Gaza has posed one of the most complex and controversial challenges since the start of the Oct. 7 war in 2023. For months, aid distribution was dominated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), but this process was repeatedly compromised by the Hamas terrorist organization, which routinely looted supplies and sold them on the black market to fund its operations.

Hundreds of truckloads of aid would frequently pile up on the Gaza side of the border, left undelivered. Israel consistently accused the UN and other NGOs of failing to get the aid to civilians, highlighting the urgent need for a new distribution model that bypassed Hamas and the UN agency that covered up for their actions.

To that end, Israel and the United States came up with a new initiative to distribute the aid: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Operated by a U.S. security contractor with IDF perimeter protection, the GHF began delivering food directly to Palestinian civilians in late May.

In an exclusive interview on THE ROSENBERG REPORT, Rev. Dr. Johnnie Moore – appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump to lead the GHF – explained the scope and impact of the project.

“It's like any of the large private humanitarian international organizations,” Moore said. “It's a U.S. foundation. The contractors on the ground that are facilitating all of the food delivery, that have set up all the operation – these are incredibly skilled technical experts. They're all Americans.”

Moore, who also serves as a commissioner on the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom, emphasized that he and others in the Trump administration rejected the premise that delivering aid necessarily meant empowering Hamas.

“That's a false choice. It doesn't have to be that way,” he said, while acknowledging that Gaza is “the single most complex humanitarian environment in many years.”

Despite the challenge, the early results have been impressive.

“In the very first week of operations, [GHF] was able to deliver seven million meals in eight days, without a single security incident happening within the confines of the distribution center,” Moore described.

On June 8 alone, the GHF delivered more than 1.1 million meals, surpassing 10 million total meals distributed in just over one week.

According to Moore, it was President Trump’s leadership that laid the foundation for this breakthrough.

“He made the point that Hamas was making it very difficult to get help to the Palestinian people. He was determined to fix that,” Moore said.

While the foundation received backing from the White House, Moore emphasized it is an independent project: “This is not a U.S. government operation. It's not an Israeli government operation. It's an independent private foundation meant to solve a problem that the President of the United States identified long ago.”

Moore warned that a global campaign of misinformation is being waged to undermine the GHF’s efforts.

“It was such an unbelievable success,” he told Rosenberg, “that now certain nefarious actors decided to issue a global disinformation campaign, to discredit the effort, when the exact opposite should have been happening. Everybody should have been celebrating what was going ahead.”

When asked why he volunteered to lead such a high-stakes effort, Moore replied: “It’s very simple: because I'm a Christian. These people deserve to be fed, and they deserve to be fed in a way that doesn't allow these bad actors to further oppress them.”

He also praised the courage of ordinary Gazans who recently started defying Hamas, openly speaking out against the terror group and the ‘curse’ it brought on them. 

“By the way, some very brave Gazans have helped distribute food to people,” he revealed to Joel. “I think that's absolutely incredible. It will warm my heart the most, as an American, to watch so many of these people spontaneously erupt and say, ‘Thank you, America, Thank you, President Trump.”

Rosenberg concluded the interview by asking Moore how Christians around the world can help.

“Pray for the success of this initiative,” he asked. “There are millions of people around the world that want this to fail for all kinds of reasons. It has to succeed. Pray for its success. Pray for the protection of all these people, and pray also for international organizations – we want them to join us in this, proving we can do this differently and do it successfully.”

Watch Rosenberg's full interview with Johnnie Moore on the TBN website.

THE ROSENBERG REPORT airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST and Saturday nights at 10 p.m. EST on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the most-watched Christian television network in the United States.

This article originally appeared on All Arab News and is reposted with permission/