Hamas killed five employees of the U.S. aid delivery company in Gaza and could take hostages, the group said.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) team said in a statement earlier Thursday that the terrorist group attacked a bus carrying more than two teams on Wednesday around 10 p.m.
The GHF said the Palestinians “work side by side with the United States” to provide critical aid and “being brutal attacked by Hamas.”
“At the time of the attack, our team was heading to one of the distribution centers in the area west of Khan Yunis.
“We are still collecting facts, but what we know is devastating: at least five people died, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage.”
The spokesman said both Americans and Palestinians were on the bus and said that the staff had “no blame.” Americans are not considered to be one of the missing persons.
Any hostage-taking could complicate the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas. It is believed that the group is still holding 20 Israelis somewhere in Raster during the October 7 raid.
However, GHF has issued misleading statements in the past, and IDF has not yet made any official comments.
The U.S. company has been in a controversy since part of the U.S. and Israeli plan to prevent humanitarian aid from falling into part of Hamas' hands.
Palestinians shouted “We got food for death and blood” in Arabic – Abdel Kareem Hana/ap
The plan has been opposed by the United Nations and the majority of the international community. Over the past two weeks, many large-scale incidents have occurred near its distribution sites, with witnesses blaming Israeli forces for providing an external security ring.
It was killed near a location earlier Wednesday, according to a local hospital authorized by Hamas.
However, the Israeli government has been claiming that Hamas is trying to undermine the new system, and in recent days the GHF has cited threats from terrorist groups, and the locations have been temporarily closed.
A GHF spokesman added: “The attack did not happen in a vacuum. For days, Hamas has publicly threatened our team, our aid staff and civilians who received our aid. These threats were silenced.”
“GHF puts Hamas entirely responsible for taking the lives of our dedicated workers who have been distributing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people at foundation sites in central and southern Gaza.
“Tonight, the world must see this: an attack on humanity.”
NGOs and the United Nations BJP believe that the system forces Palestinians (many of them on the brink of hunger) to walk through dangerous areas to collect food, which is inappropriate in itself, as most of them need to be cooked in the event of acute fuel shortages.
Israel said that under the old system, humanitarian aid was shipped directly to the Palestinian community in Gaza, and Hamas often purged the aid and sold it to the population at an exaggerated price to maintain control and support its safe.
