Israel says Hamas militant killed after strike hit Gaza aid center

Israel's military said it killed a Hamas militant Wednesday in Gaza's Rafah, giving the same name as one of four reported fatalities in a strike that hit a UN aid facility.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, earlier said "one of its staffers was killed and another 22 were injured" in the Israeli strike that hit its food distribution center in the southern city.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said four people were killed in the "bombing of the warehouse" including UNRWA staffer Husni Youssef Mussa Abu Jazar.

It also said Muhammad Abu Hasna, a Hamas police officer in charge of security at the UNRWA center, was killed.

The Israeli military said Abu Hasna was a "Hamas terrorist," adding in a statement that he was killed in a "precise strike" on Rafah.

The army released a black-and-white video of the strike, without specifying the exact location in Rafah.

The deadly strike has highlighted concerns over worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where an Israeli military campaign to eliminate Hamas has raged since the Palestinian group's Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.

The Israeli military said Abu Hasna "was a combat support operative in Hamas's military wing."

It added that Abu Hasna "coordinated the activities of various Hamas units," led "an intelligence operations room," and "was also involved in taking control of humanitarian aid and distributing it to Hamas terrorists."

'Hunger is widespread'

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the "attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine."

He also said the United Nations had shared coordinates of the facility with the Israeli army on Tuesday.

A UNRWA spokesperson said the facility was used "to distribute much-needed food and other lifesaving items to displaced people in southern Gaza."

At least 165 UNRWA employees have been killed in the besieged territory during the Israel-Hamas war, according to the UN agency.

"More than 150 UNRWA facilities were hit, some totally destroyed, among them many schools," it said in a statement.

An AFP photographer saw victims of the strike on Wednesday arriving at Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, at least one of whom was identified by other people at the hospital as a UN employee.

The strike compounded fears in Rafah, overcrowded with 1.5 million mostly displaced people, further marring the normally festive Muslim fasting month of Ramadan which began on Monday.

"It's a UNRWA center, expected to be secure," said one witness, Rafah resident Sami Abu Salim.

"Some came to work to distribute aid to the people in need of food during the holy month of Ramadan. Suddenly, they were struck by two missiles."

'How can they?'

Hasan Abu Auda, displaced from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, said people had come to the warehouse "to sustain themselves for their daily meals."

"It's Ramadan," he said. "How can they bombard us during the month of Ramadan?"

Dire food shortages after more than five months of war have resulted in 27 deaths from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children, the Gaza health ministry says.

Hamas's unprecedented Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 31,272 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry.

Cumbersome Israeli security checks on all cargo entering Gaza slow down the delivery of aid, and some trucks are sent back when they are found to contain forbidden items, aid workers say.

Israeli authorities say bottlenecks are caused by aid piling up on the Palestinian side as there are not enough trucks to distribute it.