Fatah-linked Palestinian News channel accuses Hamas of stealing food to create a humanitarian crisis

A video on the Awdah Palestinian TV channel, which is owned by the Fatah party, accused Hamas of persecuting, attacking and even killing volunteers distributing aid in the Gaza Strip. 

The video was posted to the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) website on Sunday, with translation into English. PMW monitors broadcasts of Palestinian media to document the Palestinian Authority's promotion and glorification of terror and the attacks carried out against Israeli citizens. 

In the video, the TV host accuses Hamas of “persecution of any party who is a source for distributing the [humanitarian] aid or securing it” and says that this behavior began “from the start of the war.” 

In the video segment, Fatah accuses Hamas of “preventing any activity by any [other] party in the Gaza Strip; and secondly, ensuring Hamas control over the aid and its storage.” 

As proof of its claims, the Awdah TV program ran a short clip from an Al Jazeera interview with a Gazan woman who stated: “The aid isn’t reaching all the people.” 

The Al Jazeera interviewer tells her, “A few things are arriving and they [Hamas] claim they are distributing them.” 

The woman responds, “It is all to their own homes,” before adding, “Let Hamas catch me and shoot me and do what they want to me.” 

Israel has accused Hamas of confiscating part of the humanitarian aid since the shipments began to enter the Gaza Strip in October. 

In March, Israel Defense Forces released video footage showing what it claimed to be Hamas gunmen firing on a crowd of people waiting for humanitarian aid. 

In January, the IDF released an audio recording of a Gaza citizen telling the IDF that Hamas was shooting at civilians who tried to seek help from aid groups like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). 

Israel accused the UN aid group of covering up Hamas’ theft of humanitarian aid, and its abuse of Gaza civilians in December. The IDF has also demonstrated repeated use of UNRWA-labeled items by Hamas terrorists during its raids on Shifa Hospital and its findings in several of the tunnels. 

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the UN’s aid efforts in Gaza an “utter failure” during a meeting with French Senate President Gérard Larcher in December. 

The United Nations, itself, accused Hamas of stealing humanitarian aid last October, before quickly retracting the claim. However, several Palestinian sources in Gaza told the Times of Israel that the incident did occur.

The recent video on a Fatah TV channel indicated that even Palestinian Authority leaders are aware of Hamas’ theft of aid and harassment of Gaza civilians and that they support Israel’s claims against the terror group.