By Alexander Cornwell and Charlotte Greenfield
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said on Saturday that two American aid workers had suffered non-life-threatening injuries in a targeted attack at a food distribution site in Gaza.
The U.S.- and Israeli-backed GHF said in a statement that the injured Americans were receiving medical treatment and were in a stable condition.
“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.
In addition to aid workers, the GHF employs private U.S. military contractors tasked with providing security at their sites.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. The Israeli military had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.
Gazan authorities separately reported dozens of Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli military in the past 24 hours, including near aid distribution sites.
The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza on Thursday had warned residents of the coastal enclave not to assist the GHF, saying deadly incidents near its food distribution sites endangered hungry Gazans.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, bypassing traditional aid channels, including the United Nations which says the U.S.-based organisation is neither impartial nor neutral.
The GHF has said it has delivered more than 52 million meals to Palestinians in five weeks, while other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted”.
Since Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19, the U.N. says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid handouts. A senior U.N. official said last week that the majority of people killed were trying to reach aid distribution sites of the GHF.
Footage released by GHF has shown at least one aid site to be overrun with no clear distribution process. Palestinians have described the sites as chaotic.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 70 people have been killed in the territory by the Israeli military in the last 24 hours, including 23 near aid distribution sites.
The ministry did not specify where or how exactly they had been killed.
Over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s war against Hamas, according to the Gaza health ministry, launched after the militant group’s surprise attack on Israel in October 7, 2023.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in that attack and took another 251 hostages into Gaza. There are 50 hostages still held in Gaza, of which 20 are believed to be alive.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell and Charlotte Greenfield. Editing by Mark Potter)
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