US consultancy firm involved in GHF aid scheme modelled plans to ‘relocate’ Palestinians

A consulting firm involved in the scandal-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to develop the initiative and modelled a plan to “relocate” Palestinians from Gaza as part of its work, a Financial Times investigation has revealed.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) helped design and run the US and Israeli-backed scheme which aimed to supplant United Nations-led aid coordination mechanisms in Gaza.

The chaotic roll out of the programme has seen 600 Palestinians killed and another 4,000 wounded by Israeli forces while attempting to access aid.

The firm has disavowed its involvement in the project, claiming in a statement in June that it had initially provided “pro bono support” for the project, but two senior partners that led the work “failed to disclose” its full nature and had subsequently carried out “unauthorised work” on the project.

It said that the partners have since been fired and an investigation has been launched into the firm’s involvement in the scheme.

But according to sources familiar with the project who spoke to the Financial Times, the BCG were more enmeshed with the scheme than the firm has publicly acknowledged, with the company contracted to perform $4m worth of work over a period of seven months.

Over a dozen BCG staff worked directly on the project, dubbed “Aurora”, between October and late May.

Senior figures at the firm were reported to have discussed the initiative, but the BCG said they were misled about the scope and nature of the work by the partners helming the project.

“The lead partner was categorically told no, and he violated this directive. We disavow this work,”  the BCG said.

The work included financial modelling for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza, commissioned by Israeli backers, with one scenario envisioning the “voluntary relocation” of Palestinians from the enclave.

This would have involved paying out “relocation packages” to 500,000 people worth $9,000 per person to induce people to leave the territory.

The model assumed a quarter of Palestinians would opt to leave Gaza, with three-quarters of them unlikely to return.

It estimated the cost of forced expulsion of Palestinians to be $23,000 cheaper, per Palestinian, than the costs of providing support to them in Gaza during reconstruction.

According to BCG, this side of the operation was conducted without the knowledge of senior management and against their instructions.

Involvement in security operations

The revelations also raise questions about BCG’s involvement in developing the security aspect of the initiative.

According to sources familiar with the early stages of BCG’s work on the initiative, the firm was initially contracted by Washington-based security contractor Orbis to develop a feasibility study for a new aid operation on behalf of the Tachlith Institute, an Israeli think tank.

BCG was chosen for the project because of its connections with Phil Reilly, a 29-year veteran of the CIA who worked at Orbis. He was a senior adviser to BCG’s defence practice where the two fired partners, Matt Schlueter and Ryan Ordway, worked.

Middle East Eye previously reported that Reilly served as a senior adviser at BCG for eight years, and began discussing Gaza aid with Israeli civilians while still in his advisory role in early 2024. 

The BCG did not answer MEE’s questions regarding its involvement in the security operations to support GHF, what role it had played with the foundation and who had asked the firm to get involved initially.

Reilly dropped his advisory role with BCG and went on to found Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), a private military company which became the main security provider for the GHF. According to the report, half a dozen staff shifted to “more detailed business planning” for the SRS and GHF.

This work was helmed by the US defence practice, while the initial pro-bono phase was billed to BCG’s social impact practice helmed by Rich Hutchinson.

By January, the BCG was contracted by McNally Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm which owns Orbis, to plan GHF’s ground operations from Tel Aviv.

The SRS signed an initial contract with the group worth over $1m to cover eight weeks of work to develop SRS’s operations in Gaza, with travel approvals given by officials in BGC’s risk management operation.

The group told the Financial Times that it was “pleased to have supported the establishment of SRS as an important step toward meeting the full scope of the humanitarian need in Gaza”.

Funding sources for both GHF and SRS remain unclear. Both are registered in US tax havens, with scant details available in public records.

A source previously told the Financial Times that the GHF had been pledged $100m from a country they refused to name.

Reuters reported on Friday that UBS and Goldman Sachs declined to open bank accounts for the GHF, with the foundation’s lack of transparency over its funding cited as being one of the main stumbling blocks in the discussions with the banks.

A GHF spokesperson said it has “spoken about initial funding from Europe, but we don’t disclose donors for their privacy”.

GHF’s scheme has seen 400 aid distribution points across the enclave replaced by four militarised distribution sites, where millions are forced to risk death in the hope of receiving aid.

Israeli troops have admitted to deliberately shooting and killing unarmed Palestinians waiting for aid in the Gaza Strip, following direct orders from their superiors.