Although the sites where GHF distributes aid are monitored by cameras from all angles, it did not publish any video or photo evidence to support its claim that Hamas members threw hand grenades at its staff, a local journalist told Mondoweiss. Had the story been true, the journalist said, such footage would have been widely broadcast.

Mondoweiss spoke with several journalists at the scene, some of whom shared what they witnessed on the condition of anonymity. One said that the incident was originally a fight between an aid-seeker and one of the local Palestinian workers employed by the GHF through private companies like al-Khuzundar or armed groups associated with Israeli-backed gang leader Yasser Abu Shabab.

“Employees of the GHF intervened to break up the fight by using pepper spray,” the journalist said. “When the situation escalated, armed employees of the organization threw stun grenades to disperse the crowd. However, the aid seekers picked up the grenade and threw it back at the American staff — their grenade was returned to them.”

An official in the Gaza government’s security apparatus also told Mondoweiss that no confirmed or credible information from independent sources had been recorded to support the claim of Palestinians initiating the throwing of grenades at aid distribution centers. “These allegations — especially those circulated by the U.S. State Department — lack evidence from the ground and rely on biased narratives from the Israeli occupation, aimed at justifying continued killing and starvation of Palestinian civilians,” the security source said.