More mass casualties near Gaza food points as GHF says five staff killed

The bloody chaos that has overtaken food distribution in Gaza has worsened with more mass casualties among Palestinians trying to reach humanitarian assistance, while the US-Israeli organisation tasked with aid deliveries claimed five of its local workers had been killed by Hamas.

- Julian Borger

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) claimed yesterday that a bus full of its Palestinian staff was attacked by Hamas at 10pm on Wednesday, with at least five deaths and other workers taken hostage.

It was not immediately clear why the organisation was attempting a night-time delivery. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have warned Palestinians not to approach food distribution points before 6am. The GHF reportedly claimed on its Arabic Facebook page that it had carried out a 3am food distribution.

The GHF did not respond to inquiries about the night distribution but its newly appointed chair, the evangelical preacher and Trump adviser Johnnie Moore, said on social media: "These dear people were murdered by Hamas because they just wanted to feed their people. They were not militants. They were humanitarians, many of them young people.

"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."

Hamas has not commented on the GHF claims, but said it had killed 12 members of the Israeli-backed Abu Shabab criminal gang after detaining them overnight.