" 'They Don't Look Like Humanitarians': Who Are the Opaque U.S. Military Contractors Hired to Guard the New Gaza Aid Project? - U.S. News - Haaretz.com
WASHINGTON – Amid all the scrutiny and skepticism surrounding the Trump administration's plan to address Gaza's humanitarian crisis, one element has seemed particularly perplexing: the use of private military contractors to secure the planned aid.
Two little-known firms, the Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) logistics company and the UG Solutions private security company, will publicly assist the newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and deliver aid amid increasing global outragesurrounding Israel's failures to alleviate the crisis.
Their presence, however, provokes more questions than answers about the short-term plan and Israel's bigger picture aspirations.
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Many details surrounding SRS and UG Solutions remain vague, likely by design. During their previous stint in Gaza from January through the cease-fire's collapse in March, contractors were reportedly armed with M4 rifles, used by the Israeli and U.S. militaries, and Glock pistols. Assuming they will be authorized by Israel to carry weapons in a war zone, the question remains whether Israel is setting the rules or if they are operating on their own terms. This primarily includes their rules of engagement and whether they will be armed.
Displaced Palestinians waiting to pass a checkpoint in the Netzarim corridor, where U.S. contractors were previously stationed, in February.Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
We know from countless examples that contractors do not see themselves as bound by the same already-way-too-loose rules of engagement that militaries operate under.
Matt Duss, Center for International Policy
The use of mercenaries and soldiers of fortune dates back thousands of years, though their presence in conflict zones became particularly concerning over the past several decades amid the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We know from countless examples that contractors do not see themselves as bound by the same already-way-too-loose rules of engagement that the militaries operate under," Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy think tank, told Haaretz.
SRS, which was only publicly launched in January 2025, drafted operational plans for the Netzarim corridor between north and south Gaza amid the cease-fire earlier this year. Their presence was jointly selected by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar, though both Israel and Hamas signed off on their involvement. Details surrounding its founding and funding remain opaque, though previous reporting from Jack Poulson indicated it is a shell company for Wyoming-based wealth management firm Two Ocean Trust LLC.
A Palestinian man carrying flour from the World Food Program earlier today in a Gaza bakery that had previously shuttered due to the humanitarian crisis.Credit: Ramadan Abed/Reuters
SRS CEO Phil Reilly spent 29 years at the CIA, including serving as chief of station in Afghanistan, and served in the U.S. Army Special Forces before that. Reilly played a major role in the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, and was recently featured in a Netflix documentary on the matter.
Reilly also served as senior vice president of special activities for Constellis, a private military contractor formed after Academi merged with fellow private security company Triple Canopy. Academi was the rebranded Blackwater, which is perhaps the most notorious example of a private security company wantonly using force in a war zone – as it became a household name after a massacre committed by its employees in Iraq in 2007.
UG Solutions was founded by former Green Beret Jameson Govoni, who previously formed a hangover-cure company called "Alcohol Armor." He once described himself as "a degenerate who joined the army to inflict pain on the people who inflicted pain on us."
SRS lead planner Joe L'Etoile, meanwhile, directed the U.S. Department of Defense's Close Combat Lethality Task Force from 2017-2020. Senior Manager of Operations Kevin Sullivan is also a 20-year U.S. Army Intelligence Sergeant Major who more recently worked for larger national security consulting firms.
Iraqi and foreign mercenary members of a private security company stand on the rooftop of a house in Baghdad in September 2007.Credit: Patrick Baz/AFP
'A level of opacity that's pretty concerning'
SRS was joined in the Gaza consortium earlier this year by UG Solutions, a private American security company that operates armed guards around the world.
The North Carolina-based UG Solutions was founded by former Green Beret Jameson Govoni, who previously "helped set up" a surveillance program for the Special Forces that aimed to "teach special operations soldiers how to conduct surveillance and find hard-to-find terrorist cells around the world."
Govoni, who previously formed a hangover-cure company called "Alcohol Armor" before establishing UG, described himself as "a degenerate from Boston" who "joined the army as fast as I possibly could to inflict pain on the people who inflicted pain on us" in a product-launch video since taken offline.
A worker unloading humanitarian aid from a truck near the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza today.Credit: Leo Correa/AP
UG reportedly paid contractors in Gaza $1,100 per day with a $10,000 advance for veterans during the cease-fire. Experts in Washington say these figures exceed what the notorious Blackwater once paid, reflecting the high-risk for contractors that may take this job.
He registered UG in 2023, reportedly to separate increasing demand for security contractors from his donor-financed Sentinel Foundation, which focuses on combatting child trafficking.
Speculation throughout Washington on the groups' funding amid the Gaza aid plans centers on the concern that they are being directly paid by either the Israeli government or wealthy pro-Israel businesspeople.
"There is a level of opacity around all of this that's pretty concerning," Refugees International President Jeremy Konyndyk told Haaretz. "Their website has almost nothing on it. It's very hard to tell who they are, what they are."
Many of these concerns further extend to the GHF, which U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee dismissed in a recent interview with Haaretz.
"I'm not aware of who the donors are, and many of them do want to be helpful. They want to help alleviate hunger, but for various reasons, they don't necessarily want to be identified early on. I don't understand why people find that more objectionable," he said.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee during a visit to Jerusalem's Old City last month.Credit: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
In a recent interview with Haaretz, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee dismissed worries about the private contractors, saying: "If you're hungry, do you really care where that bread comes from? It's only critics from afar who argue about who the donors are."
"When I hear that people are starving in Gaza, I ask: What's the number one thing that would put bread on their plates? And honestly, if you're hungry, do you really care where that bread comes from? It's only critics from afar who argue about who the donors are," Huckabee added.
SRS handled the logistical details while UG Solutions provided the actual boots-on-the grounds during the previous operation, and it stands to reason the same division-of-labor will occur under the GHF plans.
UG reportedly paid contractors in Gaza $1,100 per day with a $10,000 advance for veterans during the cease-fire earlier this year. Experts in Washington say these figures exceed what notorious firm Blackwater once paid, reflecting the high-risk/high-reward nature for contractors that may take this job.
This satellite image from May 3 shows an aid compound being built in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.Credit: Planet Labs PBC
According to humanitarian groups briefed on the plans, the IDF will control an outer perimeter, while the contractors will secure and operate a distribution hub within the area. Humanitarian experts assume roughly 2,000-3,000 Gazans will cross these lines every day, crossing both biometric identification and lines of armed soldiers' and contractors, according to the plan's current formulation.
"To the Palestinian population, this will look like militarized aid, full stop. To get aid from the GHF, you would need tens of thousands of Palestinians passing through an IDF line, then through armed security before picking up what they need to pick up, then passing back through armed security and through IDF lines," says Konyndyk of Refugees International, who is also a former Biden administration official who has been voicing concern over the handling of the humanitarian situation in Gaza since the first months of the war.
'Altruism' driven by profit
Though it has not been officially confirmed, a picture circulating on social media last week captured a group of men resembling U.S. military veterans presumed to be contractors arriving in Tel Aviv before heading to Gaza.
"Those do not look like aid workers, and they're not going to look like aid workers to the local population," Konyndyk adds.
"Even leaving aside how reputable or disreputable these contractors are, it's important to understand that a distribution in Gaza is not a logistics problem. It is a policy problem," says Duss, who was formerly Senator Bernie Sanders' foreign policy advisor.
"Humanitarian organizations already have the capacity to massively surge aid into Gaza if the Israeli government would stop blocking aid into Gaza. The scheme for delivering aid is simply a way to facilitate the policy of denying aid to some people, and using aid to corral Palestinians into a smaller piece of land," says Duss.
A truck carrying humanitarian aid driving through the Gaza/Israel border crossing earlier today.Credit: Jack Guez/AFP
No matter how altruistic those behind the groups may attempt to paint their involvement, their presence at the end of the day is primarily profit driven. "Our entire military industrial complex is, of course, driven by profit," Duss says. "This is just yet another _expression_ of that."
Every time they've [the Israelis] found they cannot replicate what the humanitarian system does, and they're going to find that again.
Jeremy Konyndyk, Refugees International
This is particularly considering their involvement as part of the greater Israeli goal to exert absolute control over how basic necessities for daily life are allowed (or disallowed) to reach Palestinians.
The greater fear, meanwhile, remains that Israel is utilizing these contractors as a path toward mass displacement and even forced population transfer.
While workers employed by humanitarian nonprofit organizations would refuse to play any role in restricting aid availability to draw people into other parts of Gaza, experts familiar with the plans believe the contractors and the aid hubs will inevitably lead to Palestinians being herded to southern Gaza.
"Humanitarians try to appear neutral and impartial. If it appears they're working to advance objectives of one side, that turns them into a target," Konyndyk says. "Hubs being run by contractors, headed up by former intel officials and operating hand-in-glove with the Israeli government – this is not lost on people inside Gaza."
Palestinian children waiting for food at a displacement camp near Gaza City today.Credit: Omar al-Qattaa/AFP
This will only further increase the new hubs' vulnerability, not only decreasing the likelihood of any mainstream humanitarian organization's participation but increasing the likelihood of contractors' use of force in turn.
Beyond these concerns comes the fact that some of the most notable incidents during the war have occurred when Israel has attempted to formulate some sort of workaround – whether the so-called flour massacre or the killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers, or COGAT-organized commercial aid targeted by criminal elements, or the spectacular failure of the U.S.-constructed temporary pier.
"Every time they've found they cannot replicate what the humanitarian system does, and they're going to find that again," says Konyndyk, who warns "it's not a stretch at all to think you'll start to see incidents" where Israeli soldiers accidentally shoot at either Palestinian civilians or aid convoys – events that have occurred throughout the past year-and-a-half, although it remains to be seen what will happen if private contractors be caught in the crossfire.
"It will not take too many incidents like that," he adds, "to collapse the whole enterprise."