A convoy of 109 trucks was violently looted on Saturday after entering Gaza, resulting in the loss of 98 trucks, said the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The looting is one of the worst incidents in Israel’s more than 13-month-old attack on the besieged and bombed area, said Louise Waterridge, UNRWA’s chief emergency officer, on Monday.
A convoy carrying food provided by the UN agency UNRWA and the World Food Program was ordered by Israel to leave at short notice via an unusual route from Karem Abu Salem. [Kerem Shalom] crossing with Gaza.
“This incident highlights the difficulty of the challenges of delivering aid to southern and central Gaza,” said Wateridge, adding that injuries occurred in the incident.
“The urgency of the crisis is unavoidable; “Without immediate intervention, food shortages will increase significantly, endangering the lives of more than two million people who depend on aid to survive,” she said.
UNRWA did not specify who carried out the robbery.
Israel says it is doing everything it can to ensure that enough aid gets into the coastal areas, and that it is not blocking the flow of humanitarian aid.
However, the UN aid chief said on Friday that aid access to Gaza has reached a low point, as deliveries to the besieged areas in the north of the enclave are all but impossible.
In the north – in Jabalia, Beit Hanoon, and Beit Lahia – no food has been allowed to enter for more than a month, since the Israeli army renewed its ground offensive in the area, which has been cut off from others. of the Gaza Strip.
The reigning famine
At the beginning of the month, a well expert who assesses food supply said that famine is imminent in the north or already exists.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that there are between 75,000 and 95,000 people still in northern Gaza.
This area is being attacked by the Israeli army. According to Palestinian health officials, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the attacks began last month.
Israel has killed at least 43,922 Palestinians since it launched its offensive on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
As well as intensifying the bombardment, the Israeli army issued new waves of forced eviction orders against residents of northern Gaza.
But many Palestinians have refused to leave despite dire conditions for aid and daily shelling. Some fear that if they leave northern Gaza, they risk being attacked by Israeli soldiers and snipers.
Health officials say the siege has crippled the health care system in northern Gaza and prevented medical teams from reaching bombed areas.
Israel has banned UNRWA from working in the country and has severed relations with it, saying the organization has ties to Hamas, which UNRWA denies. The organization warned on Monday that the suspension of its operations in Israel and East Jerusalem will prevent it from coordinating major aid efforts in Gaza.
“There is no plan B,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday.
The only alternative to UNRWA’s work in Gaza is to allow Israel to conduct services there, Lazzarini said, repeating calls for countries to resist Israel’s ban on the agency, which will take effect in January.
Lazzarini is in Geneva for a strategy meeting with sponsors. The ban, he said, is one of the darkest moments in the organization’s history.
“I have drawn the attention of the member states that now time is running out… We must stop or prevent the implementation of this bill,” he told reporters.
The establishment of the facility has drawn criticism from around the world, including from Israel’s key ally the United States.
UNRWA provides assistance to approximately six million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
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