Palestinians block and empty dozens of UN food lorries in Gaza Strip

Glasgow Times

3 days ago

The WFP said the aid, mostly flour, was taken before the trucks could reach their destination.
A witness in the southern city of Khan Younis told the Associated Press the UN convoy was stopped at a makeshift roadblock and offloaded by desperate civilians in their thousands.
The nearly three-month blockade on Gaza has pushed the population of more than two million to the brink of famine. While pressure has eased slightly in recent days as Israel allowed some supplies to enter, aid organisations say far from enough food is getting in.
A Palestinian girl waits to collect (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
Israel's military body in charge of aid co-ordination in Gaza, Cogat, said 579 trucks of aid had entered over the past week. The UN has said 600 per day were entering under the previous ceasefire that Israel ended with a new bombardment.
The WFP said the fear of starvation in Gaza is high. 'We need to flood communities with food for the next few days to calm anxieties and rebuild the trust with communities that more food is coming,' it said in a statement, adding that it has more than 140,000 metric tons of food — enough to feed Gazans for two months — ready to be brought in.
The United Nations said earlier this month that Israeli authorities had forced workers to use unsecured routes in areas controlled by Israel's military in the eastern areas of Rafah and Khan Younis, where armed gangs are active and trucks were stopped.
An internal document shared with aid groups about security incidents, seen by the AP, said there were four incidents of facilities being looted in three days at the end of May, not including Saturday's.
The UN says it has been unable to get enough aid in because of fighting. On Friday, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said it only picked up five truckloads of cargo from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, and the other 60 trucks had to return due to intense hostilities.
A new US and Israeli-backed foundation started operations in Gaza this week, distributing food at several sites in a chaotic rollout.
Israel says the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will eventually replace the aid operation the UN and others have carried out during nearly 20 months of war.
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli air strike (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)
It says the new mechanism is necessary, accusing Hamas of siphoning off large amounts of aid. The UN denies that significant diversion takes place.
The GHF works with armed contractors, which it says are needed to distribute food safely. Aid groups have accused the foundation of militarising aid.
Israel has continued its military campaign across Gaza, saying it struck dozens of targets over the past day. Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 60 people had been killed by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.
The ministry said three people were killed by Israeli gunfire early on Saturday in Rafah; three others were killed — parents and a child — when their car was struck in Gaza City; an Israeli strike hit another car in Gaza City, killing four; and an Israeli strike hit a tent sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, killing six, said Weam Fares, a spokesperson for Nasser Hospital.
Israel's military said several projectiles from Gaza fell in open areas.
The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 2023, killing around 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 250 hostages. Of those taken captive, 58 remain in Gaza.
Israel believes 35 are dead and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there are 'doubts' about the fate of several others.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 54,000 Gaza residents, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.
A group of hostages' relatives again pleaded for a comprehensive ceasefire deal that would free everyone at once, saying the remaining hostages 'will not survive continued military pressure'.
If Mr Netanyahu signs a partial hostage deal, they said, he will be 'sentencing to death' those left behind.