By Max Blumenthal and Wyatt Reed – The Grayzone
Following an AP investigation accusing a US mercenary firm of firing on desperate Gaza aid seekers, the company has released extensive new footage in an attempt at damage control. But the video only further implicates the scandal-plagued operation.
On July 2, the Associated Press released an exposé containing short videos which appeared to show American mercenaries associated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) opening fire on aid-seekers in Gaza during an incident in southern Gaza this May. The footage was supplied by a former employee of UG Solutions, a firm charged with securing GHF distribution sites.
“I think you hit one,” one soldier of fortune says to another following a loud burst of gunfire.
“Hell yeah, boy!” another exclaims.
In an apparent attempt to control the damage from the AP investigation, UG Solutions has distributed a pair of videos comprising over seven minutes of footage to the press.
The newly released footage offers an unprecedented glimpse of the disturbing interactions between the starving population of Gaza and well-armed, clearly unprepared Americans hired to provide security for GHF’s chaotic aid operations.
Filmed by one of its own employee, the recordings were seemingly distributed in an effort to show UG Solutions’ agents have not fired live bullets on unarmed crowds of Palestinians. According to a UG Solutions statement, the videos “not only clarify what happened, but provide critical context, which contradicts that [sic] AP’s reporting and shows that the accusations are unfounded.”
However, a closer examination by The Grayzone demonstrates that the video was anything but exculpatory.
In one video, a ragtag group of mercenaries can be seen firing what they called “warning shots” toward a crowd of Palestinian civilians, whom they acknowledged to be non-threatening, before radioing the notoriously trigger-happy Israeli military for backup.
Following a series of nearby gunshots, a UG Solutions mercenary can be heard radioing the IDF to inform them, “We are firing warning shots. Warning shots – that’s from us,” he says. Like all others heard in the video, he speaks in an American accent.
Seconds before the gunshots ring out, a UG Solutions agent can be seen in the lower left hand corner of the screen aiming his rifle in the direction of a crowd of aid seekers.
These crucial pieces of evidence undermine claims by a UG Solutions spokesman, who told the AP he was “unaware of video showing gunfire from someone believed to be a UG Solutions contractor.”
While eroding the mercenary firm’s defense, the UG Solutions video also underscores the shambolic state of GHF’s supposedly humanitarian operations.
Mercenary candid camera exposes “amateur hour”
In the footage, the mercenary filming acknowledges that he and his fellow guns for hire are unable to exchange even basic Arabic phrases with the starving crowds.
“Think I’m gonna write down some… Arabic words,” he says, before rattling off a series of expressions that reflected his team’s lack of training and utter inability to communicate: “Tomorrow. Back. Go home. Stop.”
The mercenary tacitly acknowledges that in the absence of translation help, he and his team have been forced to rely on English speaking Gazan aid seekers. “There were a couple [Palestinians] that, like you said, spoke decent English, that were pretty helpful.”
“I think for the most part they don’t have any mal intent, because they’re desperate,” the American continues, noting the absence of genuine security threats.
A nearby mercenary chimes in, “They’re desperate as fuck.”
Later, the cameraman complains that refugees hauled off a light pole and a nearby tree — presumably for firewood — before grumbling that the desperate crowds took GHF’s distribution tables from the site as well.
The unsettling video seems to corroborate a high ranking UG Solutions contractor’s characterization of the firm’s Gaza operations as “amateur hour.”
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UG Solutions splits armed operations in the besieged Gaza Strip with another US private mercenary firm, Safe Reach Solutions, which was founded by former CIA operative Philip Reilly.
Both operate under the auspices of the Trump-aligned Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which received an initial investment from McNally Capital, a private equity firm founded by mapping heir Ward McNally. The Grayzone has reported that GHF also appears to have received substantial funding from Israel’s Mossad and Ministry of Defense.
The US Department of State has since pledged $30 million dollars to keep the scandal-stained GHF operations afloat.
As of July 6, 2025, over 700 people had been killed at the hands of the only armed factions operating in the so-called “humanitarian zones”: the GHF, Israel, and the formerly ISIS-aligned clan of Bedouin gang leader Yasser Abu Shabab, who was recently deputized as Israel’s local enforcers.
Several Israeli soldiers have told Haaretz that they received orders to fire at aid seekers drawn to GHF distribution hubs, causing high numbers of deaths and injuries. “Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day,” one soldier told the Israeli paper. “They’re treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars.”