Nearly 100 Aid Trucks in Gaza Convoy Are Lost to Looters, U.N. Agency Says
The New York Times
UNRWA, the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians, said its drivers were forced to unload supplies at gunpoint, in what it called one of the worst such incidents of the war.
A large convoy of trucks carrying aid was “violently looted” in the Gaza Strip over the weekend and its drivers forced at gunpoint to unload supplies, the main United Nations agency that helps Palestinians said on Monday, calling it one of the worst such incidents of the war.
The agency, known as UNRWA, said on Monday that the convoy of 109 trucks had been driving from the Kerem Shalom border crossing in southern Gaza when it was looted on Saturday. Nearly 100 of the trucks were lost, members of the convoy suffered unspecified injuries and other vehicles sustained extensive damage, the agency said.
The convoy — carrying food supplies from UNRWA and the U.N. World Food Program — had been scheduled to enter Gaza on Sunday, UNRWA said, but the Israeli military instructed it to leave a day earlier “at short notice via an alternate, unfamiliar route.”
The agency said that the incident highlighted the “challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza” despite months of attempts by aid agencies to help it arrive safely, and despite the urgency of the need. Earlier this month, a U.N.-backed panel said that all of Gaza faced a risk of famine between now and April, with the north at particular risk.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the episode. It was not clear who was responsible for the looting. In the past, Israel has accused Hamas militants of robbing aid convoys to supply their own forces.
UNRWA said that the frequent looting of humanitarian aid convoys was in part a result of the collapse of law and order in wartime Gaza, the growing desperation among Palestinians there and the policies of the Israeli authorities, who “continue to disregard their legal obligations under international law” to ensure that sufficient aid safely reached Palestinians in the territory.
