After 12 Foreign Deployments Aguilar Says Gaza Conditions Worse Witnessed
By JOSEPH ALAN SANCHEZ
FREE THE OPPRESSED is the Special Forces motto he has sought to follow during the course of his military career.
A highly decorated combat veteran with Bronze Star and Purple Heart awards, Lt. Col. Anthony Aguilar in his 25 years of service, has been deployed in theaters ranging from Afghanistan to Vietnam, yet the seasoned Marine says the refugee situation in Gaza is the worst he’s ever seen, in terms of the treatment of prisoners.
Despite the fact that the United States has almost always supported Israel, the retired colonel says war crimes have been committed and are likely ongoing in the hell-on-earth landscape called Gaza as of late 2025.
He says Israel and the U.S. military as well as private contractors, should be dealt with in a fashion that doesn’t continue to allow those in control to treat the Gazan refugees as subhuman.
Before this mega detour in Aguilar’s life, he was happy to finally be retired after 12 deployments. He says he was content to retire in North Carolina and spend more time with his family. It should be noted that Aguilar’s wife is also a retired military officer. But for the Aguilar family, Colonel Aguilar’s retirement was short lived.
He retired Jan 1, 2025, but after some consideration opted to accept an offer from GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to be a lead officer in feeding the refugees of Gaza after the United Nations was forced out of the Gaza relief effort.
As soon as Aguilar arrived in Gaza in late May of 2025, it was clear that the group charged with feeding thousands of refugees, was woefully unprepared and disorganized. He soon would see the foundation was carrying out inhumane acts, including the failure to deliver water to the displaced Gazan citizens.
By the 2nd day, he had witnessed the death of an emaciated young Palestinian who made the dreadful journey to collect scraps of dry food, only to be hit by a stray bullet on the heavily guarded road back to the chaotic refugee camp.
UG Solutions, a private contractor awarded the food provision contract has been avoiding any publicity on the subject. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is subsidiary to UG Solutions which fired Aguilar after he repeatedly made efforts to make the operation more humane.
Of course, there are layers to carrying out war with the help of private contractors. Almost all contractors working for GHF are former American combat veterans. Not all of them care about mottos and values once said to be characteristic of American soldiers. Active duty military or not, in decades past, were held in high esteem, but what has occurred in Gaza, is contrary to anything like freeing the oppressed.
Aguilar expected that the United States military and the contractors hired were good faith actors, but the money involved seems to supersede all moral contradictions. The most basic hire on makes more than $1,000 a day. When Colonel Aguilar raised concerns about chaotic methods being employed in Gaza, he was given a raise, not because of his demand for Standard Operation Procedures and humanitarianism.
Instead, days before being exited from Gaza, Aguilar was told. “Dont disagree or go against the client.” In this case, the client was the Israeli military.
Americans need to realize they are helping to fund genocide, he says.
Aguilar has received numerous threats against his family. Retirement is out, for a man who publicly stands against evil being carried out under the guise of humanitarian relief.