Geneva, Switzerland - Swiss authorities should investigate the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US-backed group preparing to move aid into the Gaza Strip, justice watchdog TRIAL International said Friday.

Describing the GHF as a private security company, it said aid distribution should be left to UN organizations and humanitarian agencies.

"The dire humanitarian situation in Gaza requires an immediate response," TRIAL International's executive director, Philip Grant, said in a statement.

"However, the planned use of private security companies leads to a risky militarization of aid," he added.

Daily Horoscope Today's horoscope: Free daily horoscope for Wednesday, May 21, 2025

That, Grant argued, "is not justified in a context where the United Nations and humanitarian NGOs have the impartiality, resources and expertise necessary to distribute this aid without delay to the civilian population."

TRIAL International said it had filed legal submissions calling on Switzerland, where GHF is registered, to check that the group was complying with its own statutes and the Swiss legal system.

The GHF has said it will distribute some 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation, but the United Nations and traditional aid agencies have already said they will not cooperate with the group, which some have accused of working with Israel.

On Thursday, the UN cited concerns about "impartiality, neutrality (and) independence."

Aid began trickling into the Gaza Strip on Monday for the first time in more than two months, amid mounting condemnation of an Israeli blockade that has sparked severe shortages of food and medicine, leading to dire warnings of famine and mass starvation.

On Friday, Gaza's health ministry said Israel had killed at least 3,673 people in the territory since it resumed strikes on March 18, taking the overall death toll since October 2023 to 53,822 – though the true number is believed to be far higher.