Anthony Aguilar, a former contractor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) who previously served as a US Army Green Beret. Photo: Screenshot

A US Army veteran and former contractor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) who has made discredited claims against Israel is scheduled to speak later this week at a conference organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nonprofit advocacy group long accused of having ties to terrorist organizations including Hamas.

Anthony Aguilar will appear as a “special guest” at a conference-wide dinner on Friday night in Washington, DC, according to itinerary of the event posted on CAIR’s website.

“CAIR’s Leadership & Policy Conference and annual banquet aren’t just another event. It’s where real conversations happen, where policy meets purpose, and where you should probably be,” the organization said on X/Twitter. 

Aguilar claimed he witnessed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shoot a child — Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hamdene, known as Abboud — as the GHF was distributing humanitarian aid on May 28. The GHF is an Israeli and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, blocking Hamas from diverting supplies for terrorist activities and selling them at inflated prices.

After Aguilar made his claim, the former US Army Green Beret rapidly rose to prominence, presenting himself as a whistleblower exposing supposed Israeli war crimes. His story gained traction internationally, going viral on social media. He subsequently embarked on an extensive media tour, in which he accused Israel of indiscriminately killing Palestinian civilians as part of an attempt to “annihilate” and “disappear” the civilian population in Gaza. 

However, Aguilar, who erroneously labeled the boy in question as “Amir,” gave inconsistent accounts of the alleged incident in separate interviews to different media outlets, calling into question the veracity of his narrative.

Nonetheless, his claims were cited widely by critics of Israel such as Tucker Carlson, Ryan Grim, and Glenn Greenwald as supposed proof of war crimes.

The GHF launched its own investigation at the end of July, ultimately locating Abboud alive with his mother at an aid distribution site on Aug. 23. The organization confirmed his identity using facial recognition software and biometric testing.

Abboud was escorted in disguise to an undisclosed safe location by the GHF team for his safety, according to The Daily Wire, which noted that the spreading of Aguilar’s false tale put the boy’s life in danger, as his alleged death was a powerful piece of propaganda for Hamas.

Fox News Digital reported that Abboud and his mother were safely extracted from the Gaza Strip earlier this month.

In footage obtained by both news outlets, the boy can be seen playfully interacting with a GHF representative and appearing excited ahead of their planned extraction.

During the summer, as Aguilar’s claims were receiving widespread media attention, the GHF released a chain of text messages showing that Aguilar was terminated for his conduct. It also held a press conference to present evidence showing that Aguilar “falsified documents” and “presented misleading videos to push his false narrative.”

Meanwhile, CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that US District Court Judge Jorge Solis “found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association'” of CAIR with Hamas.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that CAIR “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.'”

Moreover, several high-ranking members of CAIR publicly celebrated Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel. During what ended up becoming the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust, Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages while rampaging through Israeli communities.

In a 2023 speech following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, for example, CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see” Palestinians “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.”

US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) recently requested that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) launch an investigation into CAIR claiming the group has ties to Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

CAIR has come under recent scrutiny after the organization’s Philadelphia chapter announced that it was partnering with local schools. “CAIR-Philadelphia is partnering with schools this year to make sure every student feels seen, safe, and supported,” the group said in an Instagram post. “Invite the CAIR Philly staff for a training to educators and staff on cultural competency, anti-bullying, and inclusive practices.”

In a letter to the US Education Department warning about this partnership, Cotton cited materials which CAIR distributes across the city and promotes in its programming — notably its “American Jews and Political Power” course — and other attempts to revise the history of Sharia, or Islamic, law, which severely restricts the rights of women and is opposed to other core features of liberal societies.

One of CAIR’s most controversial documents demands that teachers omit key facts about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on US soil.

“Avoid using language that validates the claims of the 9/11 attackers by associating their acts of mass murder with Islam and Muslims,” CAIR says in the material. “For example, avoid using inaccurate and inflammatory terms such as ‘Islamic terrorists,’ ‘jihadists,’ or ‘radical Islamic terrorists.'”