An Israeli missile hit a convoy carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati hospital in the Gaza Strip, killing several people from a local transport company, the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera) group has said.
Israel claimed without immediate evidence that it opened fire after gunmen seized the convoy.
The strike killed several people employed by a transportation company that the aid group was using to bring supplies to the Emirates Red Crescent Hospital in Rafah, Sandra Rasheed, Anera’s director for the Palestinian territory, said on Friday.
The strike happened Thursday on Salah al-Din Street in the Gaza Strip and hit the convoy’s first vehicle.
“The convoy, which was coordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed,” Rasheed said in a statement cited by The Associated Press news agency.
“Despite this devastating incident, our understanding is that the remaining vehicles in the convoy were able to continue and successfully deliver the aid to the hospital. We are urgently seeking further details about what happened.”
In a later statement, Anera said four Palestinians were killed in the strike.
It identified the dead as “four community members with experience in previous missions and engagement in community security”.
They “stepped forward and requested to take command of the leading vehicle, citing concern that the route was unsafe and at risk of being looted”, the Anera statement said.
“The four community members were neither vetted nor coordinated in advance, and Israeli authorities allege that the lead car was carrying numerous weapons. The Israeli air strike was carried out without any prior warning or communication.”
The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee posted to the social platform X that “gunmen seized a car at the head of the convoy [a jeep] and began driving”.
“After the seizure operation and after confirming the possibility of attacking the militants’ vehicle alone, the raid was carried out, as the rest of the convoy vehicles were not harmed and reached their target according to the plan,” Adraee wrote. “The operation to target the militants removed the risk of seizing the humanitarian convoy.”
The United Arab Emirates, which normalised relations with Israel in 2020 and has been providing aid to Gaza since the ongoing war began, did not immediately acknowledge the attack.
Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on other aid convoys in the Gaza Strip. The World Food Programme announced Wednesday it is pausing all staff movement in Gaza until further notice over Israeli troops opening fire on one of its marked vehicles, hitting it with at least 10 rounds. The shooting came despite having received multiple clearances from Israeli authorities.
On July 23, UNICEF said two of its vehicles were hit with live ammunition while waiting at a designated holding point. An Israeli attack in April hit three World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven people.
According to the UN, more than 280 aid workers have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since October 7.
Meanwhile, the vice president of global policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, Kate Phillips-Barrasso, said recent attacks on aid convoys in Gaza leave humanitarian organisations “no good choices”.
“They can either take tremendous risks or make the difficult decision to pause operations, even as millions of lives hang in the balance,” she said in a statement.
Phillips-Barrasso said her group has consistently raised concerns are the lack of safety assurance and access denials that make delivering aid in Gaza “nearly impossible”.
“With famine conditions emerging and the first confirmed case of polio among unvaccinated children since the conflict began, failing to address these obstacles is unacceptable and dangerous,” she added.
Israeli forces have continued to seal shut vital border crossings in Gaza, where famine is looming and extreme hunger is rapidly spreading. Aid has been trickling into the bombarded and besieged territory intermittently since Israel launched its latest assault there almost 10 months ago.
Hospitals are also lacking much-needed fuel for generators, medicine and other essential supplies.
