A retired US Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel who worked as a contractor at an aid distribution point in Gaza has gone on-the-record with claims that he personally witnessed war crimes perpetrated by the Israel Defense Forces and by American contractors working for the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). 

"I witnessed the Israeli forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians," Anthony Aguilar told BBC. "I witnessed the Israeli forces firing a main gun tank round from the Merkava tank into a crowd of people, destroying a car of civilians that was simply driving away from the site. I witnessed mortar rounds being fired at the crowd… to keep them controlled." 

The GHF is led by an evangelical Christian leader with close ties to Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump. The organization was established in Israel in a collaboration of American evangelicals and private security contractors. Soon after the GHF began distributing aid to war-torn Gaza in May, disturbing reports emerged of Israeli soldiers killing unarmed Palestinians approaching aid points for food. Reports of dozens of Palestinians being killed in single incidents have become common. Last week, the UN human rights office said more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while trying to receive food at the distribution points. 

Aguilar was blunt in characterizing what he observed in the context of his US military service: 

"In my entire career, I have never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population...an unarmed, starving population. I've never witnessed that in all the places I've been deployed to war until I was in Gaza, at the hands of the IDF and US contractors ... Without question, I witnessed war crimes."

He also condemned the GHF and its hired American guns:    

"My professional opinion of how the sites were established was what I would describe as 'amateur.' Inexperienced, untrained, no idea of how to conduct operations of this magnitude. That would be my most benign assessment. In my most frank assessment, I would say that they're criminal."

The GHF said Aguilar's allegations were "categorically false," telling BBC that the retired Green Beret is "a disgruntled former contractor who was terminated for misconduct." In a separate statement, GHF said its own investigation concluded his claims are "false and have no basis in reality."