Hamas fighters. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Mohamed Ateeq Al-Falahi, secretary-general of the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), accused Hamas on Monday of sabotaging the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip during the Palestinian terror group’s 2014 summer war with Israel, and of provoking terror attacks on aid workers.

Al-Falahi’s comments came in the presence of UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at a lecture regarding security challenges encountered during the country’s humanitarian initiatives.

According to Al-Falahi, when Red Crescent staffers were stationed at a UAE field hospital in Gaza during the 2014 war, Hamas provoked Israel by firing missiles from that hospital, ultimately impairing the Red Crescent’s aid delivery efforts when Israeli forces responded by attacking the source of the terrorist rocket fire.

“This shows [Hamas’s] wicked intentions and how they sacrificed us,” said Al-Falahi. “They always claim the enemy targets humanitarian envoys, but the betrayal came from them.”

The Red Crescent official added that Hamas “accused [the UAE aid team] of being spies, undercover foreign intelligence [officers] who were escaping” when leaving Gaza, and informed Islamic terror groups in the Egyptian Sinai that “there was a group making their way there, so prepare for jihad against them…as we stopped at a grocery store to buy something to eat, they started shooting at us.”

“What hurts is that the betrayal came from our own people. Muslims fighting Muslims, who were giving humanitarian aid to Muslims,” Al-Falahi said.