Hamas "brutally attacked" a bus carrying the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) staff to a distribution site near the southern city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday night, killing at least five, the US-backed charity said.
"There are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage," GHF said in a statement. The five killed staff members are Palestinian.
“We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,” GHF said. “These were aid workers. Humanitarians. Fathers, brothers, sons, and friends, who were risking their lives everyday to help others.”
The killings early Wednesday were carried out by the Hamas Sahm police unit, which Hamas claims it established to combat looting.
The unit released video footage showing several dead men lying in the street, saying they were Abu Shabab militia fighters who had been detained and killed for collaborating with Israel. It was not possible to verify the images or the claims around them.
Abu Shabab officials denied that the images showed members of their militia.
Israel's foreign ministry reacted to the news by stating on X that "Hamas is weaponising suffering in Gaza -- denying food, targeting lifesavers and forsaking its own people."
Reverend Johnnie Moore, a Christian evangelical advisor to US President Donald Trump who was recently appointed head of GHF, called the killings “absolute evil” and lashed out at the UN and Western countries over what he said was their failure to condemn them.
“The principle of impartiality does not mean neutrality. There is good and evil in this world. What we are doing is good and what Hamas did to these Gazans is absolute evil,” he wrote on X.
Israel and the US say the new system is needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid from the long-standing UN-run distribution scheme, which is capable of delivering food, fuel and other humanitarian assistance to all parts of Gaza.
UN officials deny there has been any systematic diversion of aid by Hamas, and instead say they have struggled to deliver it because of Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of law and order in Gaza.
The GHF began operating in late May, stating it has distributed more than 7 million meals worth of food during the first week of its mandate. However, its work has been marred by deadly shootings which have taken place near some of its four aid distribution centres in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, at least 25 people were reportedly killed near a GHF convoy in the Netzarim corridor in Gaza, according to two hospitals there.
The GHF has claimed it has faced continued threats from Hamas, saying on Saturday this has "made it impossible" to operate in Gaza. Hamas has denied this, in turn accusing the GHF of "failing on all levels".
