‘A very dangerous place.’ Franklin Graham on Gaza, as relief flight departs NC.

N.C. evangelist Franklin Graham watched Saturday as a Samaritan’s Purse 767 departed Greensboro for Israel with relief supplies for Gaza. He prayed earlier with the flight crew.

“It’s a very dangerous place, even though a peace agreement has been signed,” Graham told The Charlotte Observer by phone 15 minutes after the flight departed for Ben Gurion Airport.

“Hamas has held 2.5 million people hostage for the past 18 years,” he said, referring to the armed Palestinian group and political movement in the Gaza Strip, and the estimated population of Gaza.

“They are a wicked group of people,” Graham said. “They could care less about Gaza.”

Graham is president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, the Boone-based international Christian relief organization.

Saturday’s flight was the 13th with supplies for Gaza by Samaritan’s Purse and its disaster response specialists. Because of its size, the plane held as many supplies as the organization’s 757 and DC-8 cargo planes combined, Graham said.

767 packed with supplies

The flight included more than 290,000 packets of vitamin-rich, peanut-based supplementary food for women and children, 12,000 blankets, 12,000 solar lights and other relief items.

“Gaza has no electricity,” Graham said, explaining the importance of the hand-held solar lanterns for families.

The blankets are because colder temperatures arrive in Gaza, too, in winter, he said.

The supplies will be taken to a Samaritan’s Purse warehouse in Israel before being distributed to families in Gaza, Graham said.

“We have to work very carefully,” Graham said when asked about the specter of violence in Gaza.

In a statement announcing Saturday’s flight, Graham said Hamas also “held 251 innocent people hostage from Israel.”

“They executed anyone who spoke out against them, as we witnessed on the streets of Gaza last week,” Graham said in the statement. “We pray this flight will bring relief to people who are suffering.”

Armored ambulances, 223 tons of food

Samaritan’s Purse disaster response specialists have worked in Israel and Gaza since immediately after the conflict began two years ago, he said.

The organization has delivered more than 223 tons of supplemental food and a million food rations, and its medical teams have treated more than 1,700 patients, according to the statement.

In Israel, Samaritan’s Purse has given 42 ambulances — 28 armored — to Magen David Adom, the country’s emergency services provider.

Samaritan’s Purse also has 11 major construction projects in Israel, including two ambulance response stations, nine community centers with bomb shelters, and an equine therapy center for youth.

Despite the risk of violence, his organization will continue reaching Gazans and others in need, Graham told the Observer.

“You still have 2.5 million people who need help,” with food and other supplies, he said.

“We’re just one of a number of organizations working there,” he said. “We’re going to do all we can to help as much as we can in Jesus’ name, to show that God hasn’t abandoned them. I ask people to pray for them.”