Dispute over identity of 12 reported killed by Hamas police force in Gaza
A unit of Gaza's Hamas-run police force says it has killed 12 members of an Israeli-backed Palestinian militia after detaining them, but an Israel-supported aid group said the dead were its workers.
It was not immediately possible to verify the competing claims or confirm the identities of those killed on Thursday.
The militia, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, said its fighters had attacked Hamas and killed five militants but made no mention of its own casualties. It also accused Hamas of detaining and killing aid workers.
The deaths were the latest sign of turmoil surrounding the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private contractor that Israel says will replace the UN in distributing food to Gaza's more than two million people.
Palestinians with aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
Over the past two weeks, dozens of Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded in near daily shootings as they try to reach GHF centres, with witnesses saying Israeli troops have repeatedly opened fire.
On Wednesday, at least 13 people were killed and 170 wounded when Israeli forces fired towards a crowd of Palestinians near a GHF centre in central Gaza, according to the al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.
The military said it fired warning shots overnight at a gathering that posed a threat, hundreds of metres from the aid site.
Meanwhile, internet and phone lines were down across Gaza, according to telecom provider Paltel and the Palestinian telecoms authority. They said a key line had been severed during an Israeli operation and that the military would not allow technicians into the area to repair it.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports. The UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said emergency services were cut off because of the outage, and civilians could not call ambulances. It said most UN agencies and aid groups could not reach their staff on the ground.
Israel has barred international journalists from entering Gaza, making it difficult to confirm what happened in the killings early on Wednesday near the southern city of Khan Younis.
The GHF said Hamas attacked a bus carrying more than two dozen of its Palestinian aid workers on Thursday, killing at least eight and wounding others. It said it feared some had been abducted.
'We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,' it said. 'These were aid workers. Humanitarians. Fathers, brothers, sons and friends who were risking their lives every day to help others.'
The Israeli military circulated the GHF statement but declined to provide its own account of what happened.
OCHA said it could not confirm the circumstances of the killings but added: 'Civilians must never be attacked, let alone those trying to access or provide food amid mass starvation.'
The GHF said its staff at the centres include unarmed Palestinian employees. Many are armed international contractors, mainly Americans, guarding the centres.
Fighters with the Abu Shabab group are deployed inside the Israeli military zones that surround the GHF centres, according to witnesses. Earlier this week, witnesses said Abu Shabab militiamen had opened fire on people en route to a GHF aid hub, killing and wounding many.
GHF says it does not work with the Abu Shabab group. Last week, Israel acknowledged it is supporting armed groups of Palestinians opposed to Hamas.
Hamas has rejected the GHF system and threatened to kill any Palestinians who co-operate with the Israeli military.
The Sahm police unit, which Hamas says it established to combat looting, released video footage showing several dead men lying in the street, saying they were Abu Shabab fighters who had been detained and killed for collaborating with Israel.
It was not possible to verify the images or the claims around them.
Ghassan Duhine, who identifies himself as deputy commander of the Abu Shabab group and a major in the Palestinian Authority's security forces, issued a statement saying Abu Shabab fighters had clashed with Sahm and killed five. He denied that the bodies in Sahm's images were the group's fighters.
The Palestinian Authority, led by rivals of Hamas and based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has denied any connection to the Abu Shabab group, but many of the militiamen identify themselves as PA officers.
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