Former U.S. Army Lt. Col. John Moore, a former West Point graduate, served 25 years in the United States Army and served as a Green Beret. He retired from the Army in 2011 and went to work as a contractor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a non-profit organization that provides security in the Gaza Strip. Since then, he has been attacked by his former employer, the GHF, for calling him a liar and suggesting that anyone who criticizes his group is pro-Hamas.
00:00:00.000Colonel, thanks for coming back. I wanted to speak to you at greater length, given that after our interview last week, a barrage of attacks against you, some of them sounded kind of serious, came out, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to respond, but also to clarify some of the points that your former employer is making about you.
00:00:19.480Johnny Moore, who runs the organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Federation, was on television this weekend calling you a liar, suggesting that anyone who criticizes his group is pro-Hamas, et cetera, et cetera.
00:00:32.360So I'm just going to go through some of the claims against you because you're making some significant statements that will, I think, color people's understanding of what's happening in Gaza, and so I think it's important to do this.
00:00:49.480So first, I just want to get to your separation from the Army was in January, you left the Army in March, if I'm remembering correctly.
00:01:16.660What did you do right after you left the U.S. Army after 25 years?
00:01:21.500So right after my departure from the Army, I had no interests in politics or a second career.
00:01:27.480My interest was being a stay-at-home dad. I applied at Lowe's, and I was doing part-time Lowe's lawn and garden. Really enjoyed it.
00:01:37.180What does that mean, Lowe's lawn and garden?
00:01:39.220So working at the Lowe's hardware store in the lawn and garden section, you know, giving recommendations on weed eaters, what plants to buy.
00:02:47.820And just all the things we're involved in and after my years in service and the places I've been and the family moments that I've missed in life,
00:03:00.520I felt that the rest of my life should be committed to being a good father, raising a good family because I think that's what – that's the next phase in life for me is contributing to the next generation.
00:03:12.960And for me, that's my son and the youth.
00:03:21.220So you get out after graduating West Point, 25 years in the U.S. Army, Green Beret, Lieutenant Colonel is your rank when you get out, if I'm remembering.
00:06:08.700They called me and they were asking, you know, we're, we're specifically looking for recently retired or out of service soft veterans to, to join us on this mission to Gaza to do the distribution of humanitarian aid.
00:06:21.900And I thought that perhaps this company was humanitarian aid focused.
00:06:27.760I could find very little on the company, but I did see that they were based in North Carolina.
00:06:33.260Um, I saw that the, the founder of the company, um, they, his, his claim to fame was that the, you know, he was a, he was a green beret at one point.
00:06:43.680He served as a green beret in the United States Army.
00:06:45.660And once he got out, he, he went into some entrepreneurship with a, um, post recovery alcohol hangover drink.
00:06:56.660Um, I don't know what it was called, um, but it, it kind of gave me pause to think that where's the expertise, where's the experience, where's the, and I thought, okay, maybe, you know, maybe he's just a guy.
00:07:10.340Uh, energy drink slash, um, it's, it was advertised as the ultimate hangover beverage for the, for the soft operator that, you know, has a few many drinks the night before can, can get ready for the mission the next day.
00:07:28.640That was kind of his, his claim to fame is that he, even in, in his, uh, in his, in his biography on the, the website for this company, he calls himself self-titled.
00:07:38.040I'm not calling him this, this is not me saying it.
00:07:42.660So, um, it just kind of gave me pause that, that this is, and I thought, okay, maybe he's just the, you know, the owner, you know, sometimes the owners don't necessarily, um, contribute to the mission.
00:07:55.140But it did give me pause, um, to think, you know, how, how did all of this come together?
00:08:00.720How did all this, how did all this come together so quickly in the hiring?
00:08:04.940And, you know, so they, they called me and the question that I've had many a time, um, that I often ask myself is, why did you, why did you do it then?
00:08:22.420No, I'd like to discuss it with my wife and, you know, just consider the timing and, um, let me, let me get back with you.
00:08:29.840And when I talked to my wife, I told her, I said, hey, going into this full eyes wide open, this is going to be rough.
00:08:38.780It's probably going to be dangerous because the amount of, um, just the, what I see is like the lack of experience in planning to this magnitude.
00:08:47.040This is a seriously complex and seriously complicated mission that requires, you know, people that have deep experience in this.
00:08:55.980This is, again, as I've said, this is not a weekend job.
00:08:58.260This is not a, you know, let's just go try this out.
00:09:00.960This requires depth of expertise, which was not present.
00:09:04.100Um, so I talked to my wife about it and my wife said, well, you know, you do, you have done a lot of that.
00:09:09.660So you can contribute, you can, you can help, you can be of value.
00:09:13.940What I really believed in was that if the United States was going to go into Gaza, proclaiming that our method is going to replace the UN, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to do this now.
00:09:30.560That I wanted to be a part of what I thought at the time was truly an American ideal, an America, you know, an idea of American exceptionalism that America will go in, into the breach, into danger and will help.
00:09:46.400So that's, that's, that's what I really felt like.
00:09:49.260I really felt like that America was putting a good foot forward in this to say, like, Hey, we, we respect our ally.
00:09:57.480We don't want to necessarily get involved or criticize the prosecution of the war, but we also realize and recognize a real need to end the starvation.
00:10:08.200Um, so I, I really felt that being a part of it was something, um, that was in line with American values.
00:10:19.000So what does it mean to be safe in your own home?
00:10:21.620For a long time, that meant good locks and maybe an alarm system.
00:10:24.660That was enough, but they're not enough.
00:10:26.360And you know that because the news is filled with stories of people who thought they were protected and fell victim anyway.
00:10:31.540Simply safe can help prevent you from becoming the next victim instead of just responding after somebody comes into your home and intruder enters simply safe can stop them from ever getting in.
00:11:45.740Not only was I not fired, and I've brought some points to discuss to kind of lay out the pathway to my eventual termination in terms of me.
00:11:58.060You know, they call contract termination that I terminated my contract in writing.
00:12:05.280So, in terms of contract termination, yes, my contract was terminated.
00:12:15.140I quit in protest, much like those before me.
00:12:18.540Much like Jake Wood, former director of Gaza Humanitarian Vibration, who stepped down in protest.
00:12:23.080The second in charge of the entire contract for UG Solutions, who on the 27th of May with a very scathing email to the leadership, to the CEO, stepped down in protest.
00:12:35.200The, one of the operations directors in the higher level company of Safe Reach Solutions, stepped down in protest.
00:12:43.900I was not the first, and I was not the last.
00:12:48.180When I did, I quit in a way to where I wanted to stay involved in the mission.
00:12:55.300So, I had coordinated to work with Safe Reach Solutions, again, the prime contract, to specifically be working on the humanitarian assistance team, because that would put me in a position to where I could then influence how operations on the sites ran.
00:13:11.680I would, as the humanitarian assistance team person that had leadership to take charge and to plan accordingly, I could be in charge of how rules of engagement, standard operating procedures, distribution process, organization and planning.
00:13:27.980And I felt that it was better for me to stay and be involved than to walk away and just leave no one at the wheel.
00:13:38.320So, I did terminate my contract in writing on the 13th of June and provided it to the leadership in writing.
00:13:46.020And so, just to be absolutely clear, you were not fired.
00:13:50.180And you, I suppose, have the email resigning.
00:13:53.940Not only do I have the email, you know, I have the email chain.
00:13:56.620I have the, you know, the actual letter itself that I wrote to them.
00:14:01.580And, you know, you can read it yourself, but this was provided in writing.
00:14:05.640And what I would continue to ask of UG Solutions and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation with Johnny Moore, who, you know, if he wants to say that I am a liar, I think that that's fair.
00:14:47.860Answered the call, not just once, twice, three, four times, but 12 to fight and battle for the ideals of this nation.
00:14:54.360So for him to call me a liar, I think that all veterans and all Americans should take pause and think about who's calling me a liar.
00:15:04.060Someone that has spent his entire life self-serving with PR firms and selling Bibles and whatever else it is he does on the side, you know.
00:15:32.680So what's interesting is that this entire time that this operation has been going on now for, you know, operating since the 26th of May till now.
00:16:47.080And what's important to understand is that going with a missionary organization to somewhere and distributing some meals or providing, you know, religious support, that isn't humanitarian assistance.
00:17:03.140Humanitarian assistance is an operation.
00:17:17.240It's, it's so many things that the, that experts within the United Nations that, that are educated, that, that spend their lives to become experts in are very, very, very good at doing.
00:17:29.220So to think that we can just take that on and do it is, it's very, it's a very arrogant way of looking at this problem.
00:17:39.920So Johnny Moore has no background in this.
00:17:44.380I just saw him interviewed on Fox News and he suggested you and everyone else who's criticized the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation are pro-Hamas.
00:18:02.780I mean, that is, um, that is a heavy charge to lay on somebody from such a, from, from, from an individual that carries such little weight.
00:18:13.800Doesn't sound like the Christian response to criticism to me, but what do I know?
00:18:17.400Well, I would say on his appearance on Fox, you know, in just the short time I've been doing this with no PR firm and no, no polished background.
00:18:57.860And during that press conference, which I watched, they didn't respond to a single, not one of the allegations you made about their conduct in Gaza.
00:19:10.220So the most damaging in, from my perspective, by far was the fact, and they showed the signal messages that you had written complimentary texts to the management of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at the time you now say you were dissatisfied with their conduct.
00:20:27.440And, and, and it was keen that everyone was becoming quickly unmotivated.
00:20:34.360So I was asked, so I, I, I did send out a picture once from, from one of the days we were there that was a, that was a nice photo of a boy who was happy.
00:20:44.240And I think it's, as a leader, which I am, though I was not in a direct leader position there in the beginning, I was promoted to one, but leaders don't gripe down.
00:20:58.300As a leader, did I make my issues and my complaints and my dissatisfaction absolutely known to the leadership directly in writing and in verbal?
00:21:10.220But the contractors that are there, that are, that are doing everything they can to the best of their ability with a complete lack of information.
00:21:19.220And I will also say that the Gaza humanitarian foundation has set them up for failure with no legal protection.
00:21:25.860So my position in that was that I want to contribute to the mission and the men and my gripes and my issues are with the leadership.
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00:24:41.380So that raises the question that I'm going to ask you in just a moment, which is, like, who's working for whom here and where's the money come from?
00:24:46.960But first, let me get to one last criticism of you, which was that you weren't even in the field very often.
00:24:55.200Yeah, and, you know, that's both disappointing and surprising because every photo that they put in that PowerPoint to show different things are pictures that I took on location.
00:25:12.100I was on a distribution site in Gaza every day, 24th of May, mid-SDS-1, and I brought these for you so you can look at them there.
00:25:57.820But case in point, we had, and you may have found this story amusing, we had 30 Palestinian volunteers, local workers, so Palestinians that worked with us on the sites.
00:26:14.520In a lot of the photos, they're the ones that you see with the blue vests, and they were there to work with us to help with communication, to help, you know, they're from the local population, to help with the crowd as much as they could.
00:26:28.720And they were brought on to the location, but GHF and SRS hadn't budgeted the money to feed them.
00:26:42.280So for a foundation that's supposed to be feeding people, thus far they've proven that they can't even feed their own employees.
00:26:49.500So, myself and one of the humanitarian team workers who works for SRS, there was no, there was nothing else we could do because it was Shabbat and everything was closed in Israel.
00:27:01.500The only thing open was Domino's Pizza.
00:27:14.160And we went to go pick them up, and then with an armored vehicle, with armored personnel,
00:27:19.500myself and two others, armed, we delivered Domino's Pizza to security distribution site one so that the local Gazan workers or the local Palestinian workers could eat that night.
00:27:31.320Because GHF and SRS had no plan in place to feed our local Palestinian workforce.
00:27:45.720So, it sounds, so I think you've, to my satisfaction, you've batted down the three main claims they made against you, but those are not the only claims.
00:27:54.660I don't know if Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or Johnny Moore are saying this directly, but your family's been attacked.
00:28:43.360Through the military, through DOD, there's the combat-related special compensation process to where if what you've endured is directly as a result of combat, you can have a further special compensation to where not only am I a 100% totally and permanently disabled U.S. Army veteran honorably discharged with, with honors.
00:29:06.560Um, the Army has also credentialed me with 100% combat-related special compensation, meaning that my, my injuries and wounds, um, afford me to where none of my income is taxed because of the sacrifice I made for this country.
00:29:24.360And, and you were, you know, commended and awarded a medal for bravery at least once.
00:29:30.620So, what, what are the, what's the criticism exactly of your service record?
00:29:34.940So, what I think is, um, well, so, individuals have, who, who think that they know me, who don't.
00:29:42.100Again, all of these people that have attacked my family and I, we think it's, um, we find it amusing because they all do it from behind a keyboard, from behind some Twitter handle.
00:30:05.840But people that choose to attack me do it behind a pseudonym or behind their keyboard.
00:30:12.260If America thinks that that, that anybody should trust that, um, I don't think, I don't think most Americans do.
00:30:20.960And the attacks I've had is that, oh, well, of course he's never seen anything that brutal before because he, well, he was SF, he never saw combat.
00:30:30.480He didn't command a special forces company.
00:30:32.280And what I would like to say to people out there that think otherwise, not only did I command a special forces company in third special forces group, first battalion.
00:30:40.700And I was also the battalion's executive officer and deployed that entire battalion to combat.
00:30:45.960I was then offered a second command to command the United States Army survival, evasion, resistance, and escape school.
00:30:52.260So, not only did I command a special forces operational combat unit, I also commanded the United States Army's SEER school at Fort Bragg.
00:31:03.940So, for anybody that wants to say that, well, he commanded here and didn't command that, um, you can, you can FOIA my DD-214 and you can read it.
00:31:14.100I don't, I'm a little confused though, what exactly did you do wrong?
00:31:47.240Those are like, um, icing on the cake.
00:31:51.220The, the golden, the, the golden pen, the golden watch, if you will, is O5, Lieutenant Colonel, Command Select, Battalion Command.
00:32:00.840And I commanded a battalion, an operational battalion that deployed.
00:32:05.240For people to say that, oh, well, he commanded a, a, this battalion instead of that battalion, from coming from people that have never commanded.
00:32:13.080These individuals that, that bash me online, never held a command in their entire lives.
00:32:17.840But why are they bashing you in the first place?
00:34:25.500And they, they, it's easy to ignore it when you're in Gaza, where seemingly people don't care, where you can report 30 deaths outside of a distribution site and have Johnny Moore say it didn't happen and get away with it.
00:35:23.500The purchase of churches and schools to aid the operation, the jerry-rigging of power boxes to steal electricity, foreign pesticides, collusion with the Mexican cartels.
00:35:50.640Johnny Morris seemed to deflect every instance of, and again, what I find interesting is that the people that are coming out and speaking to the atrocities aren't Hamas.
00:36:06.840Oh yeah, anybody, anybody that, that, that has anything critical to say of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation automatically becomes labeled by Mr. Johnny Moore as Hamas.
00:36:23.120This is not the 1950s where, you know, I'm a patriotic American.
00:36:28.780Well, didn't you spend like decades fighting radical Islam with a rifle?
00:36:33.340Spent decades fighting radical Islam from, from grassroots to long entrenched radical Islam in the moral Islamic liberation front in Southeast Asia.
00:36:43.340You know, you know, new radical Islam in the Middle East is a different flavor than the old entrenched grassroots radical Islam in Southeast Asia.
00:37:00.180If it came from anybody that I held to be credible, maybe I would care.
00:37:03.640But, I mean, who, who is Johnny Moore?
00:37:07.980I mean, I think it's, I think yesterday when he was on Fox, it was, it made my heart warm that you could hear outside of the Fox studio the protesting.
00:37:15.940In fact, the, the host said, um, we have some people outside exercising their, their constitutional rights and yes, continue the protest, go to his house and protest because he is lying to the American people.
00:37:32.080So, if Mr. Johnny Moore wants to call me Hamas or call me a name or say that I don't know what I'm doing or say that, that, that I'm a liar, it matters not to me because the American people know better.
00:37:45.980Where's, show us your books, Johnny, show us where the money comes from.
00:37:52.120I, I know you made it clear that you didn't work for Ghazi Humanitarian Foundation, but you worked providing security for them through a couple of different layers.
00:38:00.660But, where does their money come from?
00:38:05.100And what's, what's appalling to me is that that exact same question you asked her is the same question that every member of Congress that I spoke to over the last two weeks has asked me.
00:38:14.940They, I mean, you've made the point with, and you did the math on it, that they are not feeding the population of Gaza, despite what they say.
00:38:23.340And they can't because they don't have enough distribution centers.
00:38:25.860They've got three working distribution centers in a country of over two million people.
00:38:45.060The only indication anyone has to include, again, not just lonely old peon me, but Congress.
00:38:53.260Our United States Congress has no idea where the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's money comes from, other than the 30 million that came to the State Department last month.
00:39:24.300So, from, in terms of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at that level, that high level, I can't say.
00:39:33.440I would think that there's probably a higher entity.
00:39:36.900Now, SafeReach Solutions, which is the actual contract mechanism, like the actual execution of the contract, does answer to, and the client is, the IDF.
00:39:51.180And that was told directly to me, looking at me in my face by the operation.
00:39:54.940So, they're the contractor that provides security or everything else as well?
00:40:01.380So, SRS, one of the subcontractors is UG Solutions for Security.
00:40:05.660One of the subcontractors is another company called Arkell out of Louisiana.
00:40:09.180It's very hard to find anything about them.
00:40:12.340They provide the trucking and the driving.
00:40:14.360And then there's another company called LMCC underneath SRS.
00:40:17.640That's an Israeli company that provides the construction materials for the sites.
00:40:21.240Okay, so, SafeReach Solutions is the contractor that handles, like, all the details for passing out aid from building the facilities to providing men with guns to protect them.
00:40:36.160SRS is what most people would think GHF would be doing.
00:40:46.080I mean, the way I would describe it is that the United States is providing a humanitarian assistance mechanism that is not providing food, nor water, nor assistance.
00:40:56.960That what I would call is an appendage of the Israeli Defense Force.
00:41:01.560So, if you consider the combat operations that have been going on in southern Gaza, in any combat operation, you have an offensive force and you have a sustainment force.
00:41:13.480If the active combat, activated combat reserve units in the south are the combat component conducting offensive operations, SRS, thereby Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, I would call shaping operation number one.
00:41:30.940Displace the population, move the population, allow for phase two, the ending of Operation Gideon's Chariots.
00:41:54.000From what's called the Morag Corridor, which runs east to west, just north of the sites, through Rafa, Mawasi, Kanyunis, Berish, up to the Neserim Corridor.
00:42:05.400So, yeah, that was the objective of Operation Gideon's Chariots, which, as of last night, came to an end.
00:42:15.320Highly criticized because they didn't accomplish that task entirely.
00:42:18.580But now they're shifting into the next phase, which, from a military perspective, if you are trying to absolutely destroy a nation, that's exactly what you would do.
00:42:33.780You conduct wide area security, you conduct offensive operations, you establish control, and then you occupy.
00:42:42.380What's happening in Gaza is often described as a war, and you said you heard and saw small arms fire, mortars, artillery barrages, but they were all coming from the IDF.
00:43:02.060Did you ever see any Palestinians committing acts of violence when you were there?
00:43:06.180In all the days that I was there, and again, GHF, who, again, their lawyers and their press personnel have gone there for some photo shoots.
00:43:52.900The IDF, again, I'd like to clarify in terms of the position that the IDF is in, the Israeli Defense Forces, the position that they've been put in, in the South, is untenable, operationally unsound.
00:44:11.480And they, they shouldn't be, to have active, and I put that on GHF, because when the IDF said, here are these sites, we put them in operational combat zones, that's why Jake Wood stepped down.
00:44:26.080Jake Wood, on the 26th of May, day one, cut the ribbon, yellow shovel, or golden shovel, here we go, supposed to give us a big pep talk.
00:44:36.240Jake Wood was the previous Johnny Moore, if you will.
00:44:39.540He was the guy in charge of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, that as soon as this thing kicked off, we're going live, he stepped down, and then members-
00:44:47.560Has he ever explained why he stepped down?
00:44:49.360I, I have not, I've never met the man.
00:44:52.760I don't know much about him, other than when we were about to kick the whole thing off, there was going to be this, you know, kind of this pep talk, you know, great, you know, go forth and do great things.
00:45:04.760And then it was, hey, pep talk's canceled because he stepped down.
00:45:09.780It was kind of, it left kind of us, kind of a lot of us just thinking, what is this?
00:45:15.800Well, so this all starts, you were there from the very beginning, there are almost 300, all over 300 American contractors providing security.
00:45:26.980When you start to see the Israeli military shooting unarmed people, including children, does anyone talk about this at night?
00:45:34.240Like, I can't believe what we're watching.
00:45:35.620Yes, and in fact, in some of the videos that have been taken, that I've taken, and I think it's another interesting story to go down the, you know, how the videos got released because UG Solutions released them themselves, which was ironic.
00:45:51.060But in one of those videos, I'm walking, and one of the other contractors with me says, it shouldn't be this way.
00:46:10.700No, I just, I didn't want to get to the, I know, I know.
00:46:15.160When you're trying to push thousands of people through a very small exit, it doesn't happen quickly.
00:46:20.840So as they're leaving, UG Solutions personnel following the lead, it's what the IDF do.
00:46:26.380So spraying with pepper spray, stun grenades, warning shots, this contractor, he's walking next to me, and he says, clearly, it's in the conversation of the video, shouldn't be this way.
00:47:01.360You know, we did, you did what you could, but people recognize it and people are coming forward.
00:47:07.000There are a number of, at least close to a dozen now of other contractors that have either come out off the record and some that will soon, that are multiple coming on the record.
00:47:17.580So the Ghazi Humanitarian Foundation and Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, they can, they can bash me, bury me, make fun of me, all they want.
00:47:47.380All of these American veterans that raised their right hand to serve our country in uniform for decades when Johnny Moore didn't serve his country a day.
00:48:59.920Um, not impressed with their, with their, um, proficiency and performance.
00:49:06.380Because, granted, as a reserve force that's called up and immediately put into combat, I mean, when the United States calls up reserve forces, we put them through an extensive preparation.
00:49:23.140Thrown into the fire by the Israeli government into a precarious, untenable situation that, that no army should have to deal with.
00:49:32.260You should not put food distribution sites in an active combat area.
00:49:39.220What did, I mean, were there officers aware of the fact that they were shooting kids?
00:49:43.340Um, I believe that they were, they were all aware.
00:49:49.040And I, and I think that on the, at the lower level, um, and it's starting to, it's starting to come out now.
00:49:55.060There are, there have, every day, there are more and more IDF soldiers that are returning home.
00:50:01.020Again, as I said, when these contractors come home and the adrenaline's gone and you're not living and you're not in the situation anymore.
00:50:10.200And you have to look yourself in the mirror and those things come back to you that we shouldn't have done that.
00:50:23.660As they come out of that field, as they come out of the field and they decompress, they have to look at themselves in the mirror.
00:50:28.680Remember, when you're in there and you're in war and the fog and friction of war alter your compass, alter your, your azimuth, your moral compass.
00:50:40.300And when you step back into society where there's expectations of civilization and that moral compass straightens up again, there's a lot to answer for.
00:52:02.600As quote, again, the, even the, the lawyer for UG Solutions who spoke against me said that Aguilar is a liar.
00:52:13.780Though our forces may shoot warning shots at their feet and over their heads, we don't shoot at them.
00:52:20.220Well, thank you, Mr. Contract Attorney, for admitting to a war crime on the record.
00:52:24.740Because shooting at an unarmed population, targeting, shooting at them, shooting in their direction intentionally to control them, is specifically prohibited in the protocols of the Geneva Convention.
00:52:35.740So thank you, Mr. Attorney, for putting that on the record.
00:52:38.880When people get shot to death or trampled at a distribution site, what happens to the bodies?
00:52:43.840Does, does Gaza Humanitarian Foundation bury the bodies?
00:52:48.060Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Safe Reach Solutions, UG Solutions, we don't have anything to do with it.
00:52:53.500The IDF will come in, collect up the bodies and, or, or the IDF will allow the International Red Cross Red Crescent to come in and take the bodies, in this case, from site number three to the Al Nasser Hospital.
00:53:07.480And what I find interesting in that very instance, that same day, July 16th, 20 people killed on site three.
00:53:16.480GHF even put it in a release, sadly, to report that 20 Palestinians or 20 civilians were killed on site.
00:53:27.280But then when the hospitals, when the surgeons in Nasser Hospital said, we received 30 dead bodies from, or excuse me, 20, 20 dead bodies from this site.
00:54:12.640Site number three had a very similar situation.
00:54:16.140Site number three is, each site's kind of got its own flavor, if you will.
00:54:20.620So each site's kind of like its own, its own arena.
00:54:24.440Site number three, because it's right in the middle of, between site number two and an IDF base, it's very canalized when the foot traffic from the Morag Corridor comes south into the site.
00:55:24.940The United States military doesn't use it because firing a bullet is firing a bullet.
00:55:31.080Escalation of force would be, for an example, if I was in Baghdad as a combatant, an actual under Title X authority under the United States Constitution fighting as a belligerent in war.
00:55:42.320I can't just walk up to somebody and be like, oh, that looks like Al-Qaeda.
00:56:27.540Oh, well, considering, like, if I was on an M4 range, you know, I'm shooting at, for a qualification, I'm shooting out to 300 meters at the furthest pop-up target.
00:56:38.900But, um, maximum, like, maximum effective range of, with that M4 is out to 500, but out to 800 to 1,000 in terms of where the bolt travels with its velocity.
00:57:19.260So, when UG Solutions says that our men fire into the air or towards the beach, well, thank you again, Mr. Attorney, for just verifying to the world that you are shooting bullets into a crowd of unarmed civilians.
00:57:30.320Because what lines the entire coast from north to south of the Mediterranean Sea in Gaza?
00:57:38.180Have you ever, I mean, you had 12 deployments.
00:57:45.400So, have you ever seen anything like that anywhere else?
00:57:47.740I have never experienced, witnessed, been a part of anything that was that uncontrolled, undisciplined, barbaric, immature, and what I would call just a reckless endangerment.
00:58:03.200But we are not dealing with, we're not, first of all, UGS contractors in Gaza are not belligerent combatants.
00:59:15.260In fact, the contract itself, the contract even states that we must demonstrate proficiency and qualify on our weapon before we go into Gaza.
00:59:26.060No one, not one person, no one qualified on their weapon system.
01:00:20.160And when they first handed it to me, and I looked at it, and the options were safe, single, fully automatic, I was like, whoa, this is serious.
01:00:30.720Not even the United States Army Infantry gives weapons that are fully automatic.
01:00:57.000You wouldn't give someone that type of ammunition in a very closed, condensed space like that unless you either had no regard for human life, civilian human life, or you were intentionally trying to kill civilians at distance.
01:01:12.440It's, when we were given that ammunition, I thought it was absurd.
01:01:15.400I was like, I thought we were going into Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, and we had a weapon only, only to defend ourselves against an imminent threat of death.
01:01:30.220I do not pull that trigger unless I am directly threatened with the imminent threat of death.
01:01:35.360So, why are you giving me steel core armor-penetrating, I wouldn't say armor-piercing, but armor-penetrating ammunition that can shoot through sand berms like knife, like a hot knife through butter?
01:02:07.760Your job was to provide security at sites where they were passing out food, but you have said that they didn't pass out water because it was too expensive.
01:03:34.000I watch all the Israeli news, breaking news on my, I'm just into it now.
01:03:39.100And the, the new, or the, the, the now realized danger is that they're, they're critically low and running out of water, which should not surprise anybody.
01:04:03.380We brought this up on the very first day and not just myself, other contractors, other people that have a conscience that were like, okay, I see this child or this woman breaking into a box of food and it's all dried goods.
01:04:19.360No prepared goods, all dried goods that require water to make, that require effort to make.
01:04:36.040I mean, I thought we were doing the humanitarian aid.
01:04:38.140Well, we are, but we're not going to push back on it because water would be three times more expensive per truckload than we can bring in equal to that of three trucks of food and more food is better than, than, than limiting that for water.
01:04:49.580And I'm like, I think someone that was actually educated in humanitarian assistance and providing humanitarian aid and someone that was a nutritionist that was well-versed in feeding people would probably disagree with that.
01:05:44.480I'd be willing to take, I think it's a very charitable view.
01:05:46.880When I heard him suggest that anyone who criticizes him and his, quote, life-saving work is working for Hamas, that's when I began to wonder if he was really a good guy.
01:05:55.300Because good people don't immediately deflect in that way and accuse their critics of working for a terror group.
01:06:02.160You don't have to be a Hamas sympathizer to ask, are you delivering enough water?
01:06:06.720I think that's very inflammatory and bombastic to think that anyone that would speak out against seeing travesty and dehumanization is automatically labeled as Hamas because you don't agree with his perception.
01:06:25.440Well, especially if he's an American army colonel from San Antonio who spent 25 years fighting radical Islam.
01:06:36.760That's, so I don't, you know, I think that others can judge whether Johnny Moore is a good guy, but I don't think he gets the presumption of good guy-ness after he says something like that.
01:06:56.720And the IDF doesn't want the Gazans to have water, so no water for them.
01:07:02.920Yeah, the, the, again, the, when there wasn't a cooperative discourse with the IDF in terms of how many trucks, how much food, which sites, which times, it was directed and there was no conversation.
01:07:15.380It was, you will deliver to this site during these times, these many trucks, you will distribute this much at this time, and that is it.
01:07:24.880So the IDF is totally in charge, it sounds, operationally.
01:07:28.360The IDF gets to dictate when we go in because they control access into Gaza.
01:07:33.060So when all of our trucks get loaded, we can't go into Gaza proper from Karim Shalom until the IDF say it's okay.
01:08:09.660And not because necessarily that they're, that they're bad soldiers, but it's leadership, poor training, poor equipment.
01:08:18.640This, this idea that, you know, and, and part of it is that when you think about the, the Israeli Defense Force, they're not, the, the Israeli military structure doesn't call themselves an army or a navy or an air force.
01:09:08.560It's, it's, it's, it's almost, you have to have a sense of cognitive dissonance to do it.
01:09:19.980But you almost have to separate yourself from the situation, which is why I've said many of these contractors, if they have a conscience, which I think many of them do because they've served in the military and they know what right and wrong looks like.
01:09:29.920And in the IDF that when that separation of that cognitive dissonance between your morals and what you're doing comes back to you as a human, it hits hard.
01:09:41.120And in the coming days and weeks, as this operation, as Operation Gideon's Chariots has ended, and the Israeli army has to refit into this restructuring for occupation, which is a whole new ballgame.
01:09:56.480Occupational army, U.S. Army World War II, U.S. Army post-invasion of Iraq, that's when things get really nasty.
01:10:07.160We think that things are complicated and complex now, wait until you put an occupation army under the streets of Gaza City.
01:10:13.080If you don't mind fleshing out the difference between what's going on now and a, and a formal occupation.
01:10:19.500So right now in the South, so consider if you're a, um, a combat force, infantry, armor, tanks, artillery, you're maneuvering, you're maneuvering against an enemy or not.
01:10:32.440In this case, I didn't see many enemy out there.
01:10:44.660That's when counterinsurgency often resonates the most is that, so right now, if I were Hamas, while the active war is going on, the offensive, I'm laying low.
01:10:56.520I'm hiding, I'm going to come out and get killed.
01:11:00.160When the occupation begins, that's when the, the insurgency presents itself in armed violence.
01:11:08.300Yeah, that's when you have permanent bases that can be blown up.
01:11:11.100It's violent and it's going to get deadly.
01:11:52.900But then also, when forces begin to go into Gaza City and people, other people start to see the amount of starvation and destitute and destruction.
01:12:08.120It's going to bring the world to its knees.
01:12:12.060And it's not going to be a year from now.
01:12:19.300When the rest of the world sees what Gaza looks like, is that what you're saying?
01:12:23.580Yes, because if you consider, so the Spaniards, the Jordanians, and the French have each gone in and dropped airdrop.
01:12:32.440But, um, airdrop is ineffective because each aircraft you see flying over, pushing out bundles, that's only the equivalent of half of one truck.
01:13:03.620For the first time in a long time, others besides the Israeli Defense Force Air Force have seen what Gaza looks like from above.
01:13:19.400And the Israeli government specifically said no media in the aircraft.
01:13:23.200But, some of the crew on these aircraft, the Spaniards, the French, the, um, the Jordanians, saw that and went back to their governments and were like, this is beyond words.
01:13:53.820It's from a lower altitude, which you get a pretty good view of the ground, of the ground from above.
01:13:58.680And, and the scale of devastation in Gaza, that, not that I just, you know, I'm not talking about someone that saw this from the outside, or someone that saw pictures, or someone that looked at a picture and assessed it.
01:14:11.240It was there, touched it, felt it, smelled it.
01:14:29.420Rotting bodies, starvation, the body just breaking down.
01:14:34.380And when that's in mass, it's overwhelming.
01:14:38.580I, I smelled this, this same smell once in, um, in, in, in Baghdad during the, um, during the 2006 timeframe, during the, the height of the sectarian violence, when Sunni and Shia were just slaughtering each other.
01:14:54.140And one of our jobs that we had to do during that time was on our patrols, we would take, uh, uh, a truck and a trailer and we would load bodies.
01:15:03.500Many of veterans have, have done this.
01:15:21.780That, well, while in Baghdad in the height of sectarian violence during the, my very first deployment as a platoon leader, um, and many, a veteran can attest to this because we had to do it.
01:15:31.740Um, um, we, we would have to move through on our combat patrols.
01:15:36.560We would have to take army trucks and trailers with Iraqi army personnel to load up bodies because there were so many.
01:15:45.660That's, that smell is something you never forget.
01:15:49.500So in Gaza, standing on the berm of site number four, looking north to Gaza city.
01:15:58.200So if you're standing on site number four and you're looking south, you see Beriche and you see everything to the south towards the Egyptian border.
01:16:05.400If you're standing on the northern berm, you're looking at Gaza city, the, the apocalypse.
01:16:15.180It's the only thing I can describe it as.
01:16:16.900Well, in the evening, when that coastal wind comes over the Mediterranean and sweeps through and that hits you in the face, it smells like death.
01:16:28.300And to that scale, mark my words, someone that's seen it, someone that's lived it, someone that's touched it, someone that's felt it.
01:16:36.240When the world gets a look at what's in Gaza city and Jibalia and Southern Erez on the Gaza side of the border.
01:17:40.040Well, Senator Tillis, you know, as a Republican, his, his concern is, is because we have a large constituency of North Carolina, North Carolinians, veterans.
01:18:09.360So when you go into Tillis's office, who's a very strong pro-Israel guy, big neocon, big neocon, and you tell him this story, how does he treat you?
01:18:19.640So we talked to, we talked to his staff on, on, at his invite, his professional staff that gave notes to him.
01:18:26.940And, but every meeting I had with, with Congress, whether they were Republican or Democrat.
01:18:31.940When I sat down and I told them the truth of it, we have Americans, U.S. citizens, veterans, that we put into Gaza, armed to stave off a hungry, starving population with no rules of engagement on a tourist visa.
01:18:52.320One of the staffers even spit out his coffee when I said it.
01:18:57.500Explain the significance of, of being an armed combatant from a foreign country on a tourist visa.
01:19:05.880Well, anytime, you know, imagine if you will, if someone came from France to the United States to visit, just to see New York City, check out the sites.
01:19:16.640And they wanted to be here for a few days.
01:19:18.760So they, they would enter, you know, blue passport, bloop, go through, clear, get your little ticket.
01:19:27.380Imagine coming from France to go check out the Big Apple and you're walking around with a fully automatic machine gun, a pistol, a shotgun, and armor piercing rounds.
01:19:49.280Not only do you have legal, not have any legal protection under the Israeli government, we're there under the good graces of just hoping that, you know, that, that at some point, some Israeli official doesn't see what we're doing and saying like, that's criminal.
01:20:02.520Right now, everybody's just like, just do it because nobody sees it.
01:20:05.780But man, are we, I would call it, you know, like back in the day, we're riding dirty.
01:20:13.100And no rules of, what do you mean by that?
01:20:16.060With no rules of, so the, I feel it's, it would have been incumbent upon safe reach solutions as the plan to issue a rules of engagement, but they did not.
01:20:24.760So a rules of engagement is something, and even the, the most elite units in the United States military get briefed on and rehearse a rules of engagement.
01:20:39.840Especially when it comes to pulling a trigger to shoot a bullet, to kill a human, when all of those humans are unarmed civilians.
01:20:48.940That's, that's something that throughout the history of the world that we, from, from the battle of Jericho, I've been there.
01:20:55.560I wasn't in the battle of Jericho, but I went to Jericho on my way out of Israel.
01:21:00.900From Jericho to what we're seeing now, the world has always had the notion of protecting and safeguarding the vulnerable unarmed population.
01:21:13.600It's what the Geneva Convention and humanitarian law is based on.
01:21:31.260Again, did the Americans you were with, like having a, I don't know if there's beer for sale in Gaza, but whatever you do at night after a long day of watching civilians get shot at distribution centers,
01:21:42.880did anyone say, man, this is, this is kind of nuts?
01:21:47.440So the, the contractors that I mostly spent my time with, because remember I was the, as soon as we got into country, I was promoted to be the Joint Tactical Operations Center team leader.
01:21:59.720So I had a small team who predominantly worked out of the Joint Tactical Operations Center.
01:22:05.960Um, I had additional duties laid upon me by the leadership of UG Solutions in terms of taking pictures and, you know, being this pseudo PR person because they had no one to do PR slash this pseudo operations person.
01:22:19.000So that's why you took all the pictures.
01:22:20.640So taking all the pictures I was told to do in writing, I didn't take that because it was a hobby.
01:22:28.320I had no intention of taking, like prior to getting there in my, in my, my phone.
01:22:34.380I mean, I still had a flip phone before I went because I wanted to get a new one.
01:22:37.460Um, so I could watch movies on the plane.
01:22:40.460Um, in, in, in getting there, like the only pictures I had on my phone were like a few from, you know, some family stuff and not a phone picture taker.
01:22:52.620Um, so all the pictures you showed me, the ones right here with the dates on them and it's, he basically took pictures every single day you were there.
01:22:59.940It looks like they're all timestamped.
01:23:02.260Um, you were asked to take these by your employer?
01:23:09.080There's a, you know, this email here from, uh, and I think it's funny when they say about my, my performance here is that, you know, so this is an email.
01:23:18.700I have this, um, email here from Mr. John Corrigan, who is the chief operations officer of UG Solutions.
01:24:37.220I already had my resignation typed up that day.
01:24:39.280What is important about this day on the 12th of June, which I think is, it would be funny if it wasn't so upsetting, is that all of the pictures that I took every day, go out into the field, take pictures, document, let's tell the truth.
01:24:57.080Well, the truth that I grew up with is the truth of the truth.
01:25:00.820You don't get to, you don't get to cherry pick the truth.
01:25:04.220So every picture, every video, everything I took from the good to the bad to the indifferent.
01:25:09.420When I came back, I uploaded into the, they established a Google share drive for me specifically every day.
01:25:23.600Why didn't they want you to have them?
01:25:27.680They didn't want anybody, so in the contract, they specifically state that any photos, written experience, pictures or video are the sole proprietary property of UG Solutions.
01:25:42.080How you own an idea or a thought, I don't know, but sure.
01:25:48.580So I'd upload them and then wipe them, upload them and then wipe them.
01:25:53.600On the 11th of June, the Jerusalem Post, which I think is funny because they were also one of the ones that ran the Tony's a liar, which was, it's just absurd to think about it because they, that actual news outlet took one of my photos and used it on the front page of their magazine.
01:26:18.780It's a picture of a boy holding a box of aid.
01:26:23.180And in fact, John Ackrey, who was on the press release that GHF did today, asked me if he could use that photo as part of his personal collection because he thought it was so compelling and impactful to tell the story of what was going on in Gaza.
01:30:16.940But this letter I think is really just tops the Sunday with a nice cherry.
01:30:22.120This is from UG Solutions Corporate from the COO back in, so they had a CEO stateside and they had a COO forward, kind of like a home and away team.
01:30:32.600I read this on breaking points, but I think it's appropriate for this.
01:30:36.000Dear Tony, as your engagement with UG Solutions concludes, we extend our gratitude for your contributions to our mission in Israel and Gaza.
01:30:45.480We appreciate your flexibility and adaptability throughout the deployment and your willingness to support the mission in a variety of ways.
01:30:53.880While your current assignment ends, please let us know if you are interested in future opportunities to work with UG Solutions.
01:31:09.300Does that sound like signed by the COO?
01:31:13.960So what this whole smear campaign sounds like to me is I'm the only person in their entire construct of a company that, one, has the depth of knowledge that I have of what actually happened and what's going on.
01:31:29.660One, but two, can corroborate as an eyewitness, as a human being, as a carbon-based life form, having been on the ground in Gaza, to corroborate all of the video.
01:31:39.360The video of the guy shooting and then saying, yee-haw, hell yeah, think you got one?
01:31:43.720That was in that drive that got released to the Israeli government.
01:32:14.960Who was apparently murdered, and then your former employers trotted out a picture claiming he was still alive, but it was a different person.
01:32:26.280Do we know anything about what happened to his body, whether his family knows where he was killed?
01:32:32.600Yeah, so, you know, Johnny Moore, who claims to be this evangelical, last time I checked, you know, we should know every hair on one's head, God does.
01:32:39.840In their smear package of information, they said, Mr. Aguilar claims that this young boy was killed on the site.
01:32:50.480Well, here's a picture of him two days later.
01:32:54.440The picture that they used of Amir two days later, and also the pictures of Amir, are pictures that I took.
01:33:02.680They used photos that I took to discredit photos that I took.
01:33:07.760Look, you can't even wrap your head around it.
01:33:11.900So, the picture here that they said is Amir is on the 1st of June at site number 4, timestamped in my phone because I have the original.
01:33:23.540Site number 4 and site number 2 are 26 kilometers away through a combat zone that no civilian can traverse between the two.
01:33:31.860So, how did Amir get from site 2 on the 28th of May to site 4 on the 1st of June?
01:33:39.700Two, because it would have been impossible unless somewhere in Gaza they now have the ability to, you know, Star Trek beam people to another location.
01:35:50.440Now, Johnny Moore would say that's Hamas propaganda.
01:35:55.160So, Tony Aguilar, who has no contacts really anywhere, who's back in the United States, managed to orchestrate this Hamas kabuki theater facade simply to discredit the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
01:37:03.140Don't put food distribution centers in the middle of combat zones.
01:37:07.220So, my last question is, what other steps should the U.S. government take to make this better and to avoid what you have said a number of times is going to be an international cataclysm
01:37:22.280when the world sees what's going on in Gaza that the U.S. is supporting and paying for?
01:37:27.080What should the U.S. government do now?
01:37:30.820Today, Mr. John Ackrey, who I think is the second in command of GHF, second in charge, whatever his title is.
01:37:40.340He was introduced by Mr. Chapin Fay, who's their spokesperson, who, by the way, also has no experience in humanitarian assistance or the military.
01:37:47.500So, for Mr. Chapin Fay to say that I don't know what I'm talking about in terms of lines of sight or fields of fire, give me a break.
01:39:01.720Take all that money that we're giving to line the pockets of profiteers who spend most of it on PR firms and spokespersons and lawyers, apparently.
01:39:09.980And allow the United Nations to use it to not only expand their operations, but this would be a really good idea.
01:39:18.540Instead of the IDF sitting and just videotaping and watching U.N. trucks getting ransacked, perhaps provide some security for them.
01:39:27.640Just like, so I think it's ironic when Johnny Moore celebrates that not one of our trucks has been attacked.
01:39:35.600Well, you have them driving on a road that's in an area where there are no Palestinians that live within tens of miles.
01:39:43.140Armed to the teeth by IDF and armed Americans.
01:39:46.540Of course, they're not getting ransacked.
01:39:49.620It's almost like you're in the stands of the football field and you're saying, well, I didn't get tackled today.
01:39:58.700So, how about we provide some security assistance to the United Nations to go into these sites?
01:40:06.100Not arming or armed security, just a security presence to assist them in delivery, to empower the United Nations that has doctors and nurses and humanitarian assistants and nutritionists and people that feed people and people that know what they're doing and people that know how many calories come in a meal and how many people, how many calories someone needs that can provide water.