Six Ops Ihsan volunteers injured in Rafah strike

PETALING JAYA: Six Palestinian volunteers, who were loading humanitarian aid supplies from Malaysia under Ops Ihsan, were injured during an attack in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

“They are being treated in temporary medical shelters and a Kuwaiti hospital,” said Ops Ihsan secretariat chairman Jismi Johari, adding that the extent of their injuries is not known yet.

Jismi said the volunteers were offloading aid packages from a warehouse.He said that the attack on Friday happened near the lorry that was carrying the aid, noting that the supplies were not affected.

“The lorry could cross the border to send our batch of 13,000 food boxes,” he said when contacted.

The 13,000 food boxes were in addition to the 33,000 packages sent previously.

The humanitarian aid is an initiative under Ops Ihsan, implemented by the Malaysian Humanitarian Aid and Relief from the Palestinian People Humanitarian Trust Fund and public donations.

Ops Ihsan is a collaborative effort between the Foreign Ministry and several non-governmental organisations.Jismi said the latest strike could have been a drone attack, adding that this was the third blitz against Ops Ihsan’s humanitarian efforts.

In Ramadan, he said an area bombing impacted a distribution centre in Gaza, killing seven Palestinian volunteers.

A snipe attack by the Israeli military in northern Gaza led to the deaths of 25 Palestinians when they ventured out for water supplied by a member of Ops Ihsan, Jismi said.

In an earlier statement, Jismi explained that over 200 lorries were allowed to enter daily, compared to less than 100 per day before, as a result of international pressure after Israel’s attack on World Central Kitchen volunteers.