“We are here near the area where this incident took place,” a Gazan man told us, gesturing toward an aid distribution center run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). 

Last Sunday, dozens of Palestinians were shot at here, with masked gunmen opening fire on the people waiting to collect aid, according to the released footage and subsequent reports. 

The Washington Post, Reuters, CNN, and scores of other Western media initially reported that Israeli troops were the ones who had opened fire, and that the site of the massacre was the southern city of Rafah. 

Except, as would later become clear, the shooting actually took place at a different GHF distribution site in Khan Younis. And it wasn’t Israeli troops who fired those shots.

“All the evidence we’ve seen with our own eyes indicates that Hamas caused the killings and panic during the distribution of aid a few days ago,” the Gazan man continued. “No one possesses weapons and the ability to mobilize and carry out such an attack on people except Hamas. And no one has an interest in this attack except Hamas.”

Hamas has managed to retain its grip on power in the Gaza Strip because up until now, it fully controlled the flow of aid into Gaza, explained Michael Nahum, the chief operating officer at the Center for Peace Communications (CPC). But GHF, the new aid mechanism, which Israel—with U.S. backing—has been rolling out in recent weeks, bypasses Hamas entirely, safeguarding the trucks from looters and delivering supplies directly to residents. 

“And Hamas, understandably, is launching a full-fledged counteroffensive against this effort, because they understand it is truly an existential threat for them,” Nahum said.

In partnership with the CPC, The Free Press sent a reporter to Gaza to speak with locals about what really happened on Sunday, and get their take on the new aid mechanism that may spell the end of Hamas’s reign in the Gaza Strip.

PHOTO and VIDEO: Use according to Section 27 A