The new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was poised to take over aid distribution in Gaza as Israel launched a new military offensive.
The foundation backed by Israel and the United States planned to begin operations on Monday, despite the sudden resignation of its executive director and opposition from the United Nations and other aid groups.
CARE International, which has been working in Palestinian communities since 1948, said it does not support and will not collaborate with GHF "or any form of militarization of aid."
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 52 people in Gaza on Monday, part of its renewed offensive after ending a ceasefire with Hamas. Some 36 of those people were killed while asleep in a shelter that formerly was a school; Israel's military said the school also was used by militants.
The GHF plan is based on Israeli and U.S. concerns that Hamas is seizing aid meant for Palestinians. The U.N. and other aid groups say that is not a significant factor, but the plan lets Israel use food as a weapon.
"It is essential that we do not wait for a new, untested, unscaled, and unworkable plan, when we have immediate mechanisms that can and must be deployed," CARE said.
The U.N. and other aid groups have been trying to distribute food, shelter, medicine and fuel across Gaza since Israel retaliated with overwhelming force against Hamas due to its suprise attack on Israel in Oct. 2023.
The GHF said its trucks were "loaded and ready to go" according to a plan that would allow food to be distributed in a limited number of places while guarded by armed contractors near Israeli military positions. It said its plan would reach 1 million of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants.
The meals that GHF said it would distribute, however, contain just 1,750 calories of the U.N.'s standard 2,100-calorie per day emergency meals.
A day earlier, Jake Wood, an American military veteran heading the U.S.-based GHF, said he was resigning because the organization couldn't operate independently of Israel. The Hamas-run Gaza government warned Palestinians against GHF, which says it has $100 million in aid pledges.
