The U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation accused Hamas of killing at least five of its Palestinian employees on Wednesday, as almost 40 other Palestinians were killed near the foundation’s aid sites in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose aid delivery has been mired in controversy and violence, said in a statement that more than two dozen of its employees were traveling by bus to a distribution center west of the southern city of Khan Younis when it was “brutally attacked by Hamas” around 10 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET), leaving at least five people dead and multiple others injured.
The foundation said there was also “fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage.”
“Despite this heinous attack, we will continue our mission to provide critical aid to the people of Gaza,” it said.
Hamas has not responded to the allegations and NBC News was unable to independently verify them.
The GHF, which said it had been threatened by Hamas in recent days, began distributing aid in Gaza after Israel in mid-May eased its three-month total blockade on all supplies into the enclave, including food, medicine and other vital items, following an international outcry and warnings of famine from United Nations food experts.
Despite the apparent loosening of the blockade, it is mostly the GHF that has been allowed to distribute aid — partly because it is supported by Israel and the U.S., which has raised doubts over its independence.
GHF executive chairman Johnnie Moore has declined to reveal the organization’s sources of funding.
“Like lots of private foundations, you know, it doesn’t disclose its donors,” he told NBC News in an exclusive interview.
“Anything that we do and anything that we say publicly is going to distract from the mission, and we have one mission, just one mission, which is to feed Gazans,” said Moore, an evangelical Christian and former adviser to President Donald Trump who was appointed last week after his predecessor resigned citing “humanitarian principles.”
Scrutiny of GHF has intensified in the past week as dozens of Palestinians were killed in and around its multiple aid sites in Gaza, which are in military zones and off limits to independent media.
Dr. Munir al-Barsh, director-general of the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, said 39 Palestinians had been shot and killed Wednesday as they sought aid from GHF.
“Aid distribution sites have become death traps in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
As of Thursday, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed and about 1,500 have been injured in shootings near GHF sites, according to the health ministry, whose numbers are considered credible by the World Health Organization.
While the GHF says there has been no violence in and around those distribution points, the Israeli military has previously acknowledged firing warning shots.
On Wednesday, the U.N. said that even though people in Gaza were being killed and injured while trying to access food, Israel was still declining more than half of its requests to access critical supplies of fuel and to coordinate humanitarian movement inside the enclave.
“If the population is inadequately supplied with the essentials for their survival, Israel must agree to humanitarian relief and facilitate it by all the means at its disposal,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, said at a news briefing.
The U.N. agency in Gaza, UNRWA, also renewed its criticism of GHF on Wednesday, saying in a post on X that the aid distribution model was “putting lives at risk.”
“It is also a distraction from the ongoing atrocities and a waste of resources,” it said.
The Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out a terrorist attack on southern Israel in which at least 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, according to an Israeli tally. Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas in response, launching a military campaign in Gaza that has so far killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote Thursday on a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and the opening of all Israeli border crossings to allow for the delivery of aid. A similar resolution failed last week in the U.N. Security Council, where it was supported by 14 of the 15 members but vetoed by the United States because it was not tied to the release of the hostages.
The U.N. vote comes a day after Israeli forces said they had recovered the bodies of two of the hostages inside Gaza, naming one of them as Yair Yaakov and not releasing the name of the other.
Hamas still holds 53 hostages, less than half of whom are believed to be alive.
Tensions are also rising between Israel and Iran, where Israel is considering taking military action in the coming days, five people with knowledge of the situation told NBC News.
Any strike would most likely be carried out without U.S. support as Trump is in advanced discussions with Tehran on a deal to curtail its nuclear program.
The sixth round of U.S.-Iran talks will be held Sunday in Muscat, the capital of Oman, the country’s foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, said Thursday in a post on X.
