Two US workers were injured while distributing food at an aid centre run by the controversial Gaza Health Foundation (GHF), the organization said in a statement on Saturday.
The GHF said the “targeted terrorist attack” came during food distribution activities in Khan Younis in the south of the embattled strip.
“The attack - which preliminary information indicates was carried out by two assailants who threw two grenades at the Americans - occurred at the conclusion of an otherwise successful distribution in which thousands of Gazans safely received food,” the GHF said.
No local aid workers or civilians were harmed, and the two people injured are being treated, the foundation said in a post on X.
The statement could not initially be independently verified.
The foundation began its work in the Gaza Strip at the end of May after an almost three-month Israeli blockade of aid deliveries.
The GHF does not work with UN aid organizations, which criticize the foundation for operating far too few distribution centres and for exposing people in need of aid to extreme danger.
Saturday’s injuries come a day after UN data showed at least 509 Gazans have been killed at or near the GHF distribution points in the Gaza Strip since the end of May.
The Israeli military is responsible for the deadly incidents related to the distribution of humanitarian aid, according to Palestinian sources.
The GHF said on Saturday it had repeatedly warned of “credible threats from Hamas, including explicit plans to target American personnel, Palestinian aid workers, and the civilians who rely on our sites for food.”
The foundation has reported attacks on staff in the past, saying eight Palestinian employees were killed in an attack on their way to a centre in June. The foundation blamed the Palestinian organization Hamas for the attack.
“Today’s attack tragically affirms those warnings,” the GHF said. (DPA)
