Plight in Gaza: Humanitarian aid convoy seized in chaos
During the night from Friday to Saturday, armed groups seized dozens of trucks carrying humanitarian aid that had entered the Gaza Strip. Local aid organizations report that in Gaza, which is under attack from Israel, people are experiencing severe hunger, and the aid that does arrive is just a drop in the ocean of needs.
Israel eased its blockade of the Gaza Strip at the beginning of May, but aid organizations are struggling to deliver humanitarian aid to the area. The situation on the ground is catastrophic.
Gaza: 77 trucks seized; aid plundered
The Israeli military continues its offensive, which resumed in March. On Saturday, positions of snipers and a Hamas weapons production facility were bombed, among other targets. The ongoing actions have led to the displacement of a significant portion of Gaza's over two million people to ever-shrinking areas, mainly along the coast and around Khan Yunis.
The United Nations warns that the situation in the Gaza Strip is currently the worst since the beginning of the conflict, which has been ongoing for 19 months now. Despite the resumption of limited supplies, the entire region's population is at severe risk of hunger.
Israel, which completely blocked supplies to the enclave at the beginning of March, has begun allowing individual convoys from organizations, such as the World Food Program (WFP). These deliver flour to bakeries in Gaza, but almost every transport attempt ends with plundering by starving residents. These incidents occurred last night.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), after almost 80 days of total blockade, widespread hunger has left communities unwilling to remain passive while aid convoys pass them by. The organization dispatched 77 trucks carrying flour to Gaza the previous night. However, reports indicate that none of the trucks reached their destination, as they were intercepted en route and the supplies were taken, mostly by people in urgent need, attempting to provide for their families.
The organization emphasizes that rebuilding trust necessitates ongoing and substantial humanitarian assistance. It believes that once this trust is regained, it will be possible to resume widespread direct aid deliveries to families in numerous areas throughout the Gaza Strip. The organization also notes that it currently possesses enough resources to support the entire population of Gaza for two months.
Armed attackers seize aid
Amjad Al-Shawa, who leads the association of Palestinian aid organizations, told Reuters that militant groups are taking advantage of the worsening humanitarian crisis. On Saturday morning, a segment of the World Food Programme convoy was blocked near Khan Yunis. While acknowledging the extreme desperation among the population, many of whom have gone weeks without basic food like bread, he condemned the armed looting of aid shipments. Al-Shawa also stressed the urgent need for hundreds more aid trucks and attributed the current conditions to what he described as a deliberate starvation strategy implemented by Israel.
Meanwhile, the American organization Gaza Humanitarian Foundation operates its meal distribution points, but many aid groups refuse to cooperate, accusing GHF of lacking neutrality. The scale of support remains dramatically insufficient. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, expresses this clearly. "The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery to the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch," Lazzarini wrote on platform X.
