The US is calling out Israel and Hamas after an aid shipment to the Gaza Strip was attacked and diverted

By Daphne Psaledakis and Simon Lewis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday called on both Israel and Hamas to ensure aid to civilians in Gaza is not disrupted after a shipment from Jordan was attacked by Israeli settlers and then diverted by Palestinian militants.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken inspected the relief supplies on Tuesday shortly before they left the headquarters of the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization in Amman and headed to the newly opened Gaza border crossing at Erez.

The visit was part of a U.S. push to increase aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip amid warnings of impending famine after nearly seven months of war following Hamas attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

However, before the shipment reached the border crossing, it was attacked by Israeli settlers, according to Jordan.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that Blinken raised the incident with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday and credited Israel with arresting three people involved in the attack.

“This is the step they should take if there are attacks on aid convoys,” Miller said. “They should also prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place.”

The same aid convoy was later handed over to a humanitarian aid group for distribution within the Gaza Strip, but was “intercepted and diverted” by Hamas, Miller said, adding that he believed the United Nations either sent the aid have received them back or are in the process of reclaiming them.

“It was an unacceptable act by Hamas to divert that aid in the first place, to confiscate it,” Miller said.

“If there is anything Hamas could do to jeopardize the delivery of aid, it would be to divert it to its own use rather than to the innocent civilians who need it. Therefore, they should definitely refrain from doing this in the future,” Miller added.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Simon Lewis; Additional reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Chris Reese and Paul Simao)