Hamas 'kills five Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid workers' and 'may have taken others hostage', US-Israeli-backed organisation claims

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Israel and Hamas have accused each other of killing Palestinians at aid distribution centres in Gaza.
Israel this morning declared that Hamas was 'weaponising suffering' in the embattled Strip after the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israeli-backed aid organisation, claimed the group attacked a bus transporting Palestinian aid workers.
At least five Palestinians working with GHF were killed in the ambush on the bus headed to an aid facility in southern Gaza, the group said.
A statement read: 'At the time of the attack, our team was en route to one of our distribution centres in the area west of Khan Younis.
'We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage.'
The attack came days after the GHF warned Hamas had threatened members of the organisation as well as Palestinians who risked the journey to the distribution points for sorely needed aid.
Meanwhile, Gaza hospitals retorted that at least 39 Palestinians were killed yesterday at two separate GHF aid distribution points, claiming that Israeli soldiers opened fire on the crowds.
Some 25 starving Palestinians were reportedly killed close to a GHF facility in the Netzarim Corridor, an Israeli military zone.
Another 14 Gazans are said to have died near a GHF site close to the city of Rafah.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims that more than 220 people have now been killed while attending GHF aid distribution sites in the past two weeks, primarily as a result of Israeli soldiers and security guards opening fire.
There have also been reports of armed Palestinians gunning down countrymen at the aid checkpoints after Israel admitted it was working with the Popular Forces, a Gazan militia led by Hamas opponent Yasser Abu Shabab, and other local groups to counter Hamas' influence.
The Israeli military, which guards GHF sites from a distance, has refuted claims it shot starving Gazans, admitting only that its soldiers fired only warning shots at individuals they believed were acting suspiciously.
Israel's Foreign Ministry seized the opportunity to criticise Hamas in the wake of the reported attack on the GHF bus, writing on X: 'After threats, lies and disruption, they turned to cold-blooded murder.
'Hamas is weaponising suffering in Gaza - denying food, targeting lifesavers and forsaking its own people.'
An officially private effort with opaque funding, the GHF began operating on May 26 after Israel initiated a blockade that totally cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking international condemnation and warnings of imminent famine.
During its first week of operations, the GHF said it distributed more than seven million meals' worth of food, but its operations were widely criticised even before the deadly shootings near its sites.
The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to work with the GHF.
UN officials say the GHF system is unable to meet mounting needs, and that it allows Israel to use aid as a weapon by controlling who has access to it and by essentially forcing people to relocate to the aid sites if they hope to get enough to eat.
Most of the sites are spread around the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis in what is now a mostly uninhabited military zone.
Some fear this could be part of an Israeli plan to coerce Palestinians into leaving Gaza.
Hamas has also rejected the new system and threatened to kill any Palestinians who cooperate with the Israeli military.
But Israel and the United States say the new system is needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid from the long-standing UN-run system, which is capable of delivering food, fuel and other humanitarian aid to all parts of Gaza.
UN officials deny there has been any systematic diversion of aid by Hamas, but say they have struggled to deliver it because of Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of law and order in Gaza.
Gaza medics have said hospitals are being inundated with people wounded while trying to obtain food from GHF checkpoints.
Because the aid distribution centres are located in Israeli military zones, starving Palestinians must brave heavily armed checkpoints and fenced-off enclosures if they hope to get their hands on any aid.
This system has led to crushes as hungry Gazans are forced into cordoned off areas.
Gunshots trigger stampedes that have seen hundreds injured and killed.
At Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the emergency department recently said it had received dozens of people who had been killed or wounded while waiting for aid, including 200 in a single day.
'Many Gazans went to the Nabulsi and Netzarim areas to receive aid and were shot at and shelled with tanks,' said Mutaz Harara, head of Al-Shifa's emergency department.
But with few medical supplies and no operating theatres, 'many patients died while waiting for their turn', he said.
There is also speculation over the extent to which Israel's military is delegating the task of securing the GHF to Palestinian militias, including Abu Shabab's Popular Forces.
Abu Shabab's militia says it is has been guarding several of the food distribution points set up by the GHF in southern Gaza.
But the aid organisation has denied any links to the Popular Forces.