Chaos, gangs, gunfire: Gaza aid fails to reach most in need
After images of malnourished children stoked an international outcry, aid has started to be delivered to the territory once more, but on a scale deemed woefully insufficient by international organizations.
Every day, AFP correspondents on the ground see desperate crowds rushing toward food convoys or the sites of aid drops by Arab and European air forces.
On Thursday, in Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, emaciated Palestinians rushed to pallets parachuted from a plane, jostling and tearing packages from each other in a cloud of dust.
"Hunger has driven people to turn on each other. People are fighting each other with knives," said Amir Zaqot, who came seeking aid.
To avoid disturbances, World Food Program (WFP) drivers have been instructed to stop before their intended destination and let people help themselves. But to no avail.
"A truck wheel almost crushed my head, and I was injured retrieving the bag," sighed a man, carrying a bag of flour on his head, in the Zikim area, in the northern Gaza Strip.
'Truly tragic'
Mohammad Abu Taha went at dawn to a distribution site near Rafah in the south to join the queue and reserve his spot. He said there were already "thousands waiting, all hungry, for a bag of flour or a little rice and lentils."
"Suddenly, we heard gunshots. ... There was no way to escape. People started running, pushing and shoving each other, children, women, the elderly," said the 42-year-old. "The scene was truly tragic: blood everywhere, wounded, dead."
Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip while waiting for aid since May 27, the majority by the Israeli army, the United Nations said on Friday.
The Israeli army denies any targeting, insisting it only fires "warning shots" when people approach too close to its positions.
International organizations have for months condemned the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on aid distribution in Gaza, including refusing to issue border crossing permits, slow customs clearance, limited access points, and imposing dangerous routes.
Palestinians carry bags as they return from a food distribution point run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed GHF group, near the Netsarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday. |
AFP-JIJI
On Tuesday, in Zikim, the Israeli army "changed loading plans for WFP, mixing cargo unexpectedly. The convoy was forced to leave early, without proper security," said a senior U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In the south of Gaza, at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, "there are two possible routes to reach our warehouses (in central Gaza)," said an NGO official, who also preferred to remain anonymous. "One is fairly safe, the other is regularly the scene of fighting and looting, and that's the one we're forced to take."
'Darwinian experiment'
Some of the aid is looted by gangs — who often directly attack warehouses — and diverted to traders who resell it at exorbitant prices, according to several humanitarian sources and experts.
"It becomes this sort of Darwinian social experiment of the survival of the fittest," said Muhammad Shehada, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
"People who are the most starved in the world and do not have the energy must run and chase after a truck and wait for hours and hours in the sun and try to muscle people and compete for a bag of flour," he said.
Jean Guy Vataux, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, added: "We're in an ultra-capitalist system, where traders and corrupt gangs send kids to risk life and limb at distribution points or during looting. It's become a new profession."
This food is then resold to "those who can still afford it" in the markets of Gaza City, where the price of a 25-kilogram bag of flour can exceed $400, he added.
'Never found proof'
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of looting aid supplied by the U.N., which has been delivering the bulk of aid since the start of the war triggered by the militant group's October 2023 attack.
The Israeli authorities have used this accusation to justify the total blockade they imposed on Gaza between March and May, and the subsequent establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organization supported by Israel and the United States which has become the main aid distributor, sidelining U.N. agencies.
However, for more than 2 million inhabitants of Gaza the GHF has just four distribution points, which the U.N. describes as a "death trap."
"Hamas ... has been stealing aid from the Gaza population many times by shooting Palestinians," said the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
But according to senior Israeli military officials quoted by the New York Times on July 26, Israel "never found proof" that the group had "systematically stolen aid" from the U.N.
Weakened by the war with Israel which has seen most of its senior leadership killed, Hamas today is made up of "basically decentralized autonomous cells" said Shehada.
He said while Hamas militants still hunker down in each Gaza neighborhood in tunnels or destroyed buildings, they are not visible on the ground "because Israel has been systematically going after them."
Aid workers said that during the ceasefire that preceded the March blockade, the Gaza police — which includes many Hamas members — helped secure humanitarian convoys, but that the current power vacuum was fostering insecurity and looting.
A Palestinian boy leaves a food distribution point run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed GHF group with folded cardboard boxes, near the Netsarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday. |
AFP-JIJI
"U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations have repeatedly called on Israeli authorities to facilitate and protect aid convoys and storage sites in our warehouses across the Gaza Strip," said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead at Oxfam.
"These calls have largely been ignored," she added.
'All kinds of criminal activities'
The Israeli army is also accused of having equipped Palestinian criminal networks in its fight against Hamas and of allowing them to plunder aid.
"The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point into Gaza," Jonathan Whittall, Palestinian territories chief of the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA), told reporters in May.
According to Israeli and Palestinian media reports, an armed group called the Popular Forces, made up of members of a Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab, is operating in the southern region under Israeli control.
The ECFR describes Abu Shabab as leading a "criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks."
The Israeli authorities themselves acknowledged in June that they had armed Palestinian gangs opposed to Hamas, without directly naming the one led by Abu Shabab.
Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University, said many of the gang's members were implicated in "all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that."
"None of this can happen in Gaza without the approval, at least tacit, of the Israeli army," said a humanitarian worker in Gaza, asking not to be named.
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Japan Times
16 hours ago
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Chaos, gangs, gunfire: Gaza aid fails to reach most in need
The trickle of food aid Israel allows to enter the Gaza Strip after nearly 22 months of war is seized by Palestinians risking their lives under fire, looted by gangs or diverted in chaotic circumstances rather than reaching those most in need, U.N. agencies, aid groups and analysts say. After images of malnourished children stoked an international outcry, aid has started to be delivered to the territory once more, but on a scale deemed woefully insufficient by international organizations. Every day, AFP correspondents on the ground see desperate crowds rushing toward food convoys or the sites of aid drops by Arab and European air forces. On Thursday, in Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, emaciated Palestinians rushed to pallets parachuted from a plane, jostling and tearing packages from each other in a cloud of dust. "Hunger has driven people to turn on each other. People are fighting each other with knives," said Amir Zaqot, who came seeking aid. To avoid disturbances, World Food Program (WFP) drivers have been instructed to stop before their intended destination and let people help themselves. But to no avail. "A truck wheel almost crushed my head, and I was injured retrieving the bag," sighed a man, carrying a bag of flour on his head, in the Zikim area, in the northern Gaza Strip. 'Truly tragic' Mohammad Abu Taha went at dawn to a distribution site near Rafah in the south to join the queue and reserve his spot. He said there were already "thousands waiting, all hungry, for a bag of flour or a little rice and lentils." "Suddenly, we heard gunshots. ... There was no way to escape. People started running, pushing and shoving each other, children, women, the elderly," said the 42-year-old. "The scene was truly tragic: blood everywhere, wounded, dead." Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip while waiting for aid since May 27, the majority by the Israeli army, the United Nations said on Friday. The Israeli army denies any targeting, insisting it only fires "warning shots" when people approach too close to its positions. International organizations have for months condemned the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on aid distribution in Gaza, including refusing to issue border crossing permits, slow customs clearance, limited access points, and imposing dangerous routes. Palestinians carry bags as they return from a food distribution point run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed GHF group, near the Netsarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday. | AFP-JIJI On Tuesday, in Zikim, the Israeli army "changed loading plans for WFP, mixing cargo unexpectedly. The convoy was forced to leave early, without proper security," said a senior U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the south of Gaza, at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, "there are two possible routes to reach our warehouses (in central Gaza)," said an NGO official, who also preferred to remain anonymous. "One is fairly safe, the other is regularly the scene of fighting and looting, and that's the one we're forced to take." 'Darwinian experiment' Some of the aid is looted by gangs — who often directly attack warehouses — and diverted to traders who resell it at exorbitant prices, according to several humanitarian sources and experts. "It becomes this sort of Darwinian social experiment of the survival of the fittest," said Muhammad Shehada, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). "People who are the most starved in the world and do not have the energy must run and chase after a truck and wait for hours and hours in the sun and try to muscle people and compete for a bag of flour," he said. Jean Guy Vataux, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, added: "We're in an ultra-capitalist system, where traders and corrupt gangs send kids to risk life and limb at distribution points or during looting. It's become a new profession." This food is then resold to "those who can still afford it" in the markets of Gaza City, where the price of a 25-kilogram bag of flour can exceed $400, he added. 'Never found proof' Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of looting aid supplied by the U.N., which has been delivering the bulk of aid since the start of the war triggered by the militant group's October 2023 attack. The Israeli authorities have used this accusation to justify the total blockade they imposed on Gaza between March and May, and the subsequent establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organization supported by Israel and the United States which has become the main aid distributor, sidelining U.N. agencies. However, for more than 2 million inhabitants of Gaza the GHF has just four distribution points, which the U.N. describes as a "death trap." "Hamas ... has been stealing aid from the Gaza population many times by shooting Palestinians," said the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. But according to senior Israeli military officials quoted by the New York Times on July 26, Israel "never found proof" that the group had "systematically stolen aid" from the U.N. Weakened by the war with Israel which has seen most of its senior leadership killed, Hamas today is made up of "basically decentralized autonomous cells" said Shehada. He said while Hamas militants still hunker down in each Gaza neighborhood in tunnels or destroyed buildings, they are not visible on the ground "because Israel has been systematically going after them." Aid workers said that during the ceasefire that preceded the March blockade, the Gaza police — which includes many Hamas members — helped secure humanitarian convoys, but that the current power vacuum was fostering insecurity and looting. A Palestinian boy leaves a food distribution point run by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed GHF group with folded cardboard boxes, near the Netsarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday. | AFP-JIJI "U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations have repeatedly called on Israeli authorities to facilitate and protect aid convoys and storage sites in our warehouses across the Gaza Strip," said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead at Oxfam. "These calls have largely been ignored," she added. 'All kinds of criminal activities' The Israeli army is also accused of having equipped Palestinian criminal networks in its fight against Hamas and of allowing them to plunder aid. "The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point into Gaza," Jonathan Whittall, Palestinian territories chief of the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA), told reporters in May. According to Israeli and Palestinian media reports, an armed group called the Popular Forces, made up of members of a Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab, is operating in the southern region under Israeli control. The ECFR describes Abu Shabab as leading a "criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks." The Israeli authorities themselves acknowledged in June that they had armed Palestinian gangs opposed to Hamas, without directly naming the one led by Abu Shabab. Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University, said many of the gang's members were implicated in "all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that." "None of this can happen in Gaza without the approval, at least tacit, of the Israeli army," said a humanitarian worker in Gaza, asking not to be named.
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A worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding in Gaza and immediate action is needed to end fighting and allow unimpeded aid access, a global hunger monitor warned on Tuesday, saying failure to act now would result in widespread death. Its alert coincided with a statement from Gaza health authorities saying Israel's military campaign had now killed more than 60,000 Palestinians. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) raised the prospect that the man-made starvation crisis could be formally classified as a famine, in the hope that this might raise the pressure on Israel to let far more food deliveries in. "Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths," the IPC said. It added that it would quickly carry out the formal analysis that could allow it to classify Gaza as "in famine." Parachutes carrying humanitarian aid packages fall during an air drop in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Sunday. | bloomberg But it is unclear whether any such announcement would help to remove the main obstacle to food reaching Gaza's 2.1 million people: Israel's refusal to allow more than a trickle of trucks in. Not enough food getting into Gaza "We're getting about approximately 50% of what we're requesting into Gaza since these humanitarian pauses started on Sunday," Ross Smith of the World Food Program told reporters in Geneva by video. The WFP says almost 470,000 people are enduring famine-like conditions, with 90,000 women and children in need of specialist nutrition. Gaza's health ministry says at least 147 people have died of hunger including 88 children, most in the last few weeks. Images of emaciated children have shocked the world and fueled international criticism of Israel, prompting it at the weekend to announce daily humanitarian pauses to fighting in three areas of Gaza and new safe corridors for aid convoys. Yet the supply remains far short of what aid agencies say is the bare minimum required. Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen amid a hunger crisis in Gaza City on Monday. | REUTERS The IPC alert said this meant 62,000 metric tons of staple food a month, but that according to the Israeli aid coordination agency COGAT, only 19,900 tons entered in May and 37,800 in June. Smith said the WFP lacked the stocks or permissions to reopen the bakeries and community kitchens that had been a lifeline before a total Israeli blockade began in May. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday that the situation in Gaza was "tough" but that there were lies about starvation. He said 5,000 aid trucks had entered Gaza in the last two months, and that Israel would assist those wanting to conduct airdrops — a delivery method that aid groups say is ineffective and tokenistic. Israel has consistently said its actions are justified as self-defense. It says the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which ruled Gaza, is to blame for refusing to release hostages and surrender, and for operating in civilian areas, which Hamas denies. IPC calls for end to catastrophic suffering The IPC alert said that "immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response. "This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering." A Palestinian boy holds a packet of humanitarian aid he received at the Rafah corridor, in the Mawasi area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday. | AFP-Jiji The IPC partners with governments, international aid groups and U.N. agencies and assesses the extent of hunger suffered by a population. Its famine classification requires at least 20% of people to be suffering extreme food shortages, with 1 in 3 children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying every day from starvation or malnutrition and disease. The IPC's latest data indicated that formal famine thresholds have already been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza, and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City. But David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee aid group, said that "formal famine declarations always lag reality." "By the time that famine was declared in Somalia in 2011, 250,000 people — half of them children under 5 — had already died of hunger," he said in a statement. "By the time famine is declared, it will already be too late." War has raged in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants for 22 months. After an 11-week Israeli blockade, limited U.N.-led aid operations resumed on May 19 and a week later the obscure new U.S.-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — backed by Israel and the United States — began distributing food aid. Criticism of Israeli-basked GHF aid group The rival aid efforts have sparked a war of words — pitting Israel, the U.S. and the GHF against the U.N., international aid groups and dozens of governments from around the world. Palestinians gather around a truck carrying aid supplies which entered Gaza through Israel in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Sunday. | bloomberg Israel and the U.S. accuse Hamas of stealing aid — which the militants deny — and the U.N. of failing to prevent it. The U.N. says it has not seen evidence of Hamas diverting much aid. The IPC said 88% of Gaza was now under evacuation orders or within militarized areas, and was critical of GHF efforts. It said most of the GHF food items "require water and fuel to cook, which are largely unavailable." The IPC's Famine Review Committee said: "Our analysis of the food packages supplied by the GHF shows that their distribution plan would lead to mass starvation." The GHF was not immediately available for comment. It has previously said it has so far distributed more than 96 million meals. Jolien Veldwijk, CARE Palestine Country Director, said that Palestinians were suffering a "man-made famine, caused by Israel's siege and the deliberate obstruction of aid, fueled by the inaction of world leaders." "The haunting images of emaciated children are evidence of a failure of humanity to act." The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
