Hamas accused of placing bounties on aid staff

Telegraph

5 hours ago

Hamas has been accused of putting a bounty on the heads of American contractors distributing food in Gaza and the Palestinians who support them.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said it had received credible reports that the terror group was offering cash for the killing of its staff.
In a statement late on Saturday, the body said Hamas had also 'pre-positioned' operatives near its distribution centres in a bid to disrupt the flow of aid.
It follows the massacre of 12 Palestinian GHF staff earlier this month.
GHF began operations in Gaza at the end of May, following a nearly three-month Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
It has created a handful of purpose-built distribution centres that require a family member to come and collect aid for their loved-ones.
Supported by Israel and the US, the model, which is intended to prevent aid being seized by Hamas, has been criticised by much of the rest of the international community, and NGOs, as being inhumane and not fit for purpose.
Numerous mass-shootings of Gazans have taken place near the GHF centres, with eyewitnesses blaming Israeli troops, which provides an outer layer of security, although the IDF denies this and says it has fired only warning shots.
The IDF last week launched an internal probe into the claims.
Israel, along with GHF, has repeatedly claimed that Hamas has tried to disrupt the collection of aid by intimidating the population and firing on them near aid sites.
'The targets of Hamas's brutality are heroes who are simply trying to feed the people of Gaza in the middle of a war,' GHF said.
'Our US security personnel, some of America's most elite and decorated veterans, are on the ground to protect people.
'And our local staff, who keep these operations running, have already paid the ultimate price: twelve murdered, others tortured, and now more threats emerging by the day.'
One Gazan source told The Telegraph they had seen no written material, on social media or elsewhere, to support the claim that Hamas was offering cash rewards to kill GHF staff and that promising bounties was not part of the terror group's normal playbook.
It follows the approval by the US State Department of $30 million to prop up the controversial new aid model.
Separately, Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Katz, the defence minister, have reportedly tasked the IDF with coming up with a new way of getting aid trucks into Gaza, amid increased looting.
Hamas implicated in looting
Hamas has been implicated in the looting. Armed family gangs, known as clans, have also reportedly played a role, while other reports suggest an increasingly hungry population has taken to plundering trucks on occasion.
At least 81 Gazans were killed and more than 400 injured in Israeli strikes across the enclave in the 24 hours up to midday on Saturday, according to the Strip's Hamas-run health authorities.
Eleven people, including children, were reportedly killed in a single strike on a tented area for displaced children, according to reports.
Meanwhile, tensions continue to escalate in the West Bank.
A political row has broken out after the IDF soldiers used live ammunition to contain allegedly violent settlers.
The troops' actions were criticised by the ultra-nationalist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who comes from the West Bank settler community, as 'crossing a red line'.
Other leading politicians have accused him, and his cabinet colleague, the security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, of fuelling settler violence in the first place.