“Amateur Hour”: The Man Sending US Military Contractors to Gaza

In July, one week after a whistleblower^[2] accused contractors from the American security firm UG Solutions of deploying stun grenades and shooting live ammunition toward Palestinian civilians in Gaza, a new song appeared on the SoundCloud account of “Jameson G.” Titled “demon-in-the-desert,” the dubstep track featured artwork of an alien with a dagger stabbed through its skull. After a crescendo, the beat drops. “I am the demon in the desert,” a male voice screams. “You’re gonna die.”

A Mother Jones investigation shows that UG Solutions founder Jameson Govoni is a co-owner of the account, which uses the artist name “UltimoGringo.” It is part of a questionable background for Govoni, a former Green Beret and serial small-time entrepreneur who had almost no public presence until his armed contractors arrived in the Middle East earlier this year.

Since 2019, the man now in charge of a private security force in Gaza has registered a drink for ravers, pursued a CBD venture, and sold a hangover preventative (the latter, his company boasts, was developed by “savages”). In April, he ran into trouble with the law: Govoni was taken into custody for felony eluding arrest and misdemeanor hit-and-run. One month later, after posting $50,000 in bail, he was sending military contractors to Gaza.

In August, a grand jury declined to indict Govoni in the case. When asked about it, Govoni confirmed the existence of the case, but he said via email that it was “reviewed by a grand jury and dismissed. That speaks for itself.”

Now, Govoni is at the center of a highly controversial Israeli- and US-backed food distribution scheme in Gaza that experts say has led to disastrous results.

Until March, the United Nations and established humanitarian groups distributed food to Palestinians at about 400 sites across Gaza. In May, after blocking aid from entering the enclave for nearly three months, Israel rolled out a new system^[3] to funnel food through four sites concentrated near the Egyptian border. The latest effort is spearheaded by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a shadowy US-backed nonprofit^[4] that uses UG Solutions military contractors to provide security.

Dave Harden, who had served as USAID’s mission director for the West Bank and Gaza, said the current aid regime is a “catastrophe.” The UN has released similarly grim assessments. Earlier this month, it found that more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed near militarized distribution sites. (The UN’s main human rights group said^[5] “most of the killings” have been committed by the Israeli military.) A Doctors Without Borders report^[6] in August called the aid process “orchestrated killing.”

Sam Rose, acting director of affairs in Gaza for UNRWA—the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees^[7]—said American contractors in Gaza have shown little appreciation for the nuances of food distribution, while behaving in a “completely abhorrent” manner. 

“These guys are literally cowboys,” Rose said. “They’ve probably been picked up and been offered vast amounts of money. They’re not aid workers who have any understanding or any ability to do this work.”

Govoni’s April arrest was not his first brush with law enforcement in North Carolina. While serving in the Army in 2015, North Carolina court records show, he was found guilty of driving while impaired after refusing a breathalyzer test. Two months later, his military career came to an end, according to a US Army spokesperson.

“I take full accountability for my 2015 DWI conviction,” Govoni said. “It was a wake-up call after a long and difficult deployment, and it forced me to face and work through challenges I had not fully dealt with at the time.” He added that he was honorably discharged and was “not discharged for misconduct related” to the DWI.

Govoni said that the SoundCloud page that posted the “demon-in-the-desert” track is a “shared account” but that he did not write or produce the music uploaded to it. He also said it is “misleading” to link the lyrics of the Jameson G account’s songs to his “professional work.”

In what he now calls an “offhand, tongue-in cheek” remark, Govoni once described^[8] himself as a “degenerate from Boston” who joined the military after 9/11 “to inflict pain on the people who inflicted pain on us.” At the time, Govoni was promoting the hangover prevention company he co-founded. His background is more concerning now that his contractors are carrying rifles in Gaza.

Anthony Aguilar, a retired Army officer and Green Beret who worked for UG Solutions as a contractor, said there were indications from the beginning that Govoni’s firm was not fully equipped to handle its role.

Aguilar was working at a Lowe’s home improvement store when a representative for the company reached out to him in May. “Even the hiring process to work in Lowe’s lawn and garden made the hiring process at UG Solutions look like amateur work,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that Chuck E. Cheese has more of an in-depth prior hiring process than UG Solutions.” Aguilar said he signed his contract with UG Solutions one day after the initial recruitment call, then arrived in Israel a few days later. (Govoni said Aguilar’s description of the hiring process was “inaccurate and dismissive” but declined to comment on the timeline Aguilar described.)

Gabor Rona, a professor of practice at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, said private military contractors are still largely unregulated, despite the explosion in use of such groups in recent decades. 

“There is no single source of international regulation that is setting out rules for who should be hired, what the training should be, what should be the limits on the permissible scope of activities, what mechanisms of both internal and external accountability apply when things go wrong,” explained Rona, who previously was the international legal director for Human Rights First. “It’s been a cause of significant chaos.”

In May, Govoni corresponded with another concerned UG Solutions contractor, according to messages shared with Mother Jones and previously reported^[9] by the Associated Press. The contractor warned Govoni that he had just avoided a “catastrophic disaster” at one of the food distribution points. He added that he had hit “my red line,” while describing the Gaza operation as “amateur hour.”

The UG Solutions founder replied by acknowledging “shortcomings” that required “immediate adjustments.” But he went on to stress that his company would “not compromise safety or performance,” which he described as “our collective red line.” Govoni’s goal, he said, was to get things “unfucked as fast as possible.”

Govoni confirmed the exchange. “A contractor raised concerns, and I addressed them directly,” he said. “My role as a leader is to listen, make adjustments, and refuse to compromise on safety or performance.”

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s relationship with UG Solutions is complicated. To provide aid, GHF contracts with Safe Reach Solutions, an American company led^[10] by a former CIA paramilitary chief. From there, Safe Reach Solutions subcontracts with UG Solutions to provide security at distribution sites, which reportedly^[11] pays personnel around $1,000 per day to work in Gaza. (A job posting stated that the company was looking to hire^[12], among other people, former members of US Special Forces, snipers, and those “skilled in unconventional warfare tactics.”)

GHF portrays itself as an independent entity, but reporting on the foundation’s origins undermines that narrative. As the New York Times reported^[13] in May, the “broad contours” of the GHF plan were “first discussed in late 2023, at private meetings of like-minded [Israeli] officials, military officers and business people with close ties to the Israeli government.” In June, the State Department announced^[14] $30 million in funding for GHF, while the Israeli government has reportedly^[15] provided about $200 million. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has denied doing so—potentially to avoid angering far-right members in his cabinet. (GHF declined to name any of its donors.)

Independent experts have warned that the new aid structure allows Israel to advance its interests while hiding behind an ostensibly independent nonprofit. Of particular concern is GHF’s concentration of food distribution in southern Gaza, where Israel is pushing hundreds of thousands Palestinians displaced by its ongoing assault on Gaza City^[16].

Rona, the Cardozo law professor, said the current aid model facilitates the “ethnic cleansing of Gaza” by “funneling starving people into a very few strategically located distribution points.” It creates, he added, “an image of fulfilling Israel’s humanitarian obligations, when, in fact, what it is doing is supporting Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Govoni’s path to launching UG Solutions shows what a lack of regulation of private security companies looks like in practice. 

After his Army career ended in 2015, Govoni quickly tried to enter the lucrative world of for-profit security contracting. In 2016, he founded the now-defunct SkillSet Corporation, which, among other services, offered^[17] to help clients surveil “targets.” (Govoni has said he taught^[18] surveillance for the US military after leaving the Army.)

He also expanded beyond the security sector. In 2019, Govoni started what he said was meant to be a “CBD venture focused on pain relief and anxiety” named Frontier Cannabis. Two years later, he registered another company that, according to trademark records, was meant to sell an energy drink called Not Today Satan. There is no record of either company doing business. Govoni said that like “many entrepreneurs, I’ve explored concepts that never moved forward.” He added about Not Today Satan: “It is a killer name though.”

After these ventures, Govoni went on to successfully launch a new company: Alcohol Armor, a hangover prevention product that is described on its website as “SAVAGE TESTED” and “SAVAGE APPROVED.” The company recommends using the product “every time you drink!” Its website explains the appeal: “If you don’t go to war without your armor, then why would you party without it?”

In November, North Carolina business records show that Govoni registered another company called Wook Water, a drink that is designed to “support the unique demands of ravers, artists, and the festival-driven lifestyle.” (The company name appears to refer to a slang term for a subset of festival-goers known for consuming large amounts of drugs.) Govoni is identified as Wook Water’s founder in North Carolina records, and no other officials are listed in the company’s filings. But Govoni says he only “helped friends launch the company” and does “not own or operate it.”

Govoni has also pursued charitable work. He is a co-founder of the Sentinel Foundation, an anti-child trafficking nonprofit that has taken on projects in Gaza. In a report earlier this year, the organization stated that it partnered with UG Solutions to deliver “25,000 bottles of water” and “25,000 clementines and/or bananas” in Gaza. The group has also promoted a “rescue mission” it conducted to get dozens of Americans and foreign nationals out of Gaza in the early days of the current war.

Soon after that mission, the group’s former US president, Matt Murphy, made bigoted remarks about Muslims. In a January 2024 discussion—first reported^[19] by independent journalist Jack Poulson—Murphy claimed that “killing and beheading and raping and treating, you know, Christian and Jewish women and men as lesser-than, as slaves, is not just something, you know, terrorists think, it’s Islam.”

In the same conversation, Murphy said, “Palestine is a little shit hole.” He also argued that Palestine is “not a real state,” but a “territory” populated by the descendants of “basically nomads and unwanted people from, you know, Western Asia and other Arab nations.” Andrew Guenther, the Sentinel Foundation’s CEO, said that Murphy has not been affiliated with the nonprofit since December and that statements made by him do not represent the views of the foundation. Govoni said he does “not condone discriminatory comments in any form.”

UG Solutions has also faced criticism related to Islamophobia. In August, the Intercept reported^[20] that Johnny Mulford, the company’s “country team leader” between May and August in Gaza, has Crusader-related tattoos and is a member of the Infidels, a motorcycle club that once held an anti-Muslim pig roast “in defiance of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.”

The BBC further revealed^[21] earlier this month that at least 10 members of the Infidels are working in Gaza for UG Solutions—seven of whom are reportedly in senior positions. One of those men posted a photo on Facebook of armed contractors in Gaza holding a banner that read, “Make Gaza Great Again.” According to the BBC, the contractor has “1095”—the year the first Crusade was launched—tattooed on his thumbs. (UG Solutions defended its hiring practices by saying it does “not screen for personal hobbies or affiliations unrelated to job performance or security standards.”)

UG Solutions contractors initially began working in Gaza in January 2025 to help secure a checkpoint after reportedly being hired^[22] by a “multinational consortium of states involved in negotiating the ceasefire” that Israel later violated. At the time, almost nothing was known about the company.

Rose, the UNRWA official, had never heard of the outfit before it showed up in Gaza. A brochure for UG Solutions uploaded in December 2024 stated that the company had done everything from “safeguarding intellectual property in high-stakes situations to mitigating global cyber risks.” Two clients were listed in the brochure: SpaceX and home furniture company Ashley. (Neither company responded to requests for comment; Govoni said both were part of “past projects, not current clients.”)

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and a former State Department attorney, said he was concerned from the beginning when he heard American contractors were headed to Gaza. He immediately thought of the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in which Blackwater contractors killed^[23] at least 14 Iraqi civilians. “I had a deep sense of foreboding from the outset of this,” he told me. 

UG Solutions’ initial security work ended after Israel broke the ceasefire in March. About four weeks later, North Carolina officers arrested Govoni after he allegedly committed a hit-and-run and fled police. A person familiar with the incident, which was covered^[24] by the Israeli outlet Shomrim, told me that Govoni caused more than $30,000 of damage by running into a temporary traffic signal machine. Such machines are often used to replace human traffic controllers at night. There “could have been a body” exactly where Govoni hit the machine, the person said. (Govoni rejects this characterization, saying that “the matter has been resolved by the courts” and that “speculation beyond that is inaccurate.”)

Citing court court documents, Shomrim reported^[25] that Govoni was accused of fleeing the scene of the crash in April. Law enforcement then tried to pull Govoni over, according to the Israeli publication. But, instead of stopping, Govoni allegedly sped away in a “reckless” manner. (Govoni disputed the policeman’s account in questions sent to him by Mother Jones, but did not provide his side of the story.) He was later arrested at home, Shomrim reported, and posted $50,000 in bail.

The case has now been resolved in Govoni’s favor after a North Carolina grand jury declined to indict him. On Monday, the case stopped appearing in public searches of North Carolina court records.

In May, one month after Govoni’s arrest in North Carolina, UG Solutions contractors arrived in Gaza to provide security at the new food distribution sites. That work quickly proved far more controversial than the original deployment.

GHF’s internal operations appeared to be in disarray as it prepared to begin food distributions that month. The foundation initially claimed^[26] that Nate Mook, former head of World Central Kitchen, and David Beasley, former executive director of the World Food Programme, were part of its leadership team. But both quickly told^[27] CNN that they were not working for the nonprofit. Soon after, GHF Executive Director Jake Wood resigned^[28] after concluding that it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

UG Solutions’ role came into the spotlight after Aguilar and a second whistleblower spoke^[29] to the AP in July. The two contractors said Govoni’s company was relying on unvetted and unqualified men, who seemed to have permission to do whatever they wanted. The result, they said, was disturbingly irresponsible and dangerous behavior.

In one incident, Aguilar said he witnessed UG Solutions contractors shoot toward Palestinian civilians leaving a food distribution site. In a video he recorded, a man can be heard saying, “I think you hit one,” after a burst of gunfire. Another voice shouts in response, “Hell yeah, boy!”

A GHF spokesperson said none of its contractors or subcontractors have “ever shot at or killed anyone” and called Aguilar a “proven liar.” UG Solutions has broadly rejected Aguilar’s claims in a seven-page^[30] memo from David Panzer, a partner at a Virginia-based law firm that focuses on national security and defense, that describes Aguilar as a “terminated and disgruntled contractor.” (Aguilar disputes that he was fired.)

The GHF spokesperson defended the group’s work by noting that it has provided about 160 million meals in Gaza and argued that GHF is the “only organization that has been successful” in delivering aid in Gaza in recent months, while noting that, according to data published by the UN, more people were killed in August near food convoys than in the vicinity of GHF’s sites.

Govoni said UG Solutions “categorically” rejects the idea that the company’s work facilitates ethnic cleansing. “The reality on the ground is the opposite: Without our presence, aid distribution would be more dangerous and chaotic, and Palestinians would be at greater risk,” he stated. “We provide safety and order so that aid can reach the people it is meant for.”

Humanitarian experts and many with deep experience in the region strongly disagree with that assessment.

“Testimonies from our patients describing their experiences at the GHF distribution sites depict a level of dehumanisation and violence, both indiscriminate and targeted, which is beyond disturbing,” Doctors Without Borders concluded^[31] in an August report. “[O]ur teams were mentally prepared for responding to conflict—but not to civilians killed and maimed while seeking aid. They were not prepared for treating starving and unarmed Palestinians who had been gunned down as if they were animals, often while penned into metal-gated areas.” 

More than 180 people^[32] in Gaza—including 12 children—died of starvation last month, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. UNICEF, the World Food Programme, and other leading UN groups recently declared^[33] that more than “half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths.” The number of Gazans facing famine is expected to rise to more than 640,000 people—roughly a third of the population—by the end of September. 

Mahmoud, a Palestinian father of eight, told the group that the process of getting food from the distribution sites in Gaza was reminiscent of horror movies. “We walked for hours. As you’re walking, you cry automatically,” he explained about his experience trying to obtain food for his family. “Not just for yourself—for the people, for all of us.” Mahmoud recalled that as he walked near the sea, he was shot twice in the leg. “No one could help me or carry me,” he said. “Because everyone—everyone—was exhausted. It was an absolute disaster.”

In July, as GHF and UG Solutions continued to face intense scrutiny, “Jameson G” released a new batch of songs on SoundCloud that added to the past rhetoric about being a “demon” in the desert. One was a dubstep track, apparently inspired by the drink company, called “Wook Wizard.” Another was a metal song that captured a darker side of the Jameson G account. In it, a male voice yells about being “made to set this world ablaze.” A singer goes on to say that “life takes blood if you want it real,” that there is “no mercy in this kind of game,” and that you should “pull the trigger” because you “either fight or you just die.” 

Sophie Hurwitz contributed reporting.