Pillages by criminal gangs or diverted food in the greatest chaos: after twenty-two months of war, the little food that enters Gaza does not reach those who need it most. Thanks to a partial break in the bombing announced this Sunday by Israel, under international pressure in the face of the risk of famine, humanitarian aid started to enter the besieged territory, but in quantity deemed largely insufficient by international organizations.
Every day, AFP correspondents witness dramatic scenes where desperate crowds rush, often at the risk of their lives, on vehicles loaded with food or on aerial tear sites, operated in recent days by the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, the United Kingdom or France.
“I was injured by recovering the bag”
Thursday, in Al-Zawayda (center), at the sight of the palettes parachuted by an aircraft, Palestinians weightless rushed by tens, jostling and dripping the packages in a cloud of dust. “Hunger has pushed people to turn against each other. People are fighting with each other with knives, “said Amir Zaqot to AFP, who came to seek help.
To avoid overflows, the drivers of the World Food Program (PAM) have the instructions to stop and let the population use directly. In vain. “A truck wheel almost crushed my head, and I was injured by recovering the bag,” breathes a man, a bag of flour on the head, in the zikim area, north of the Gaza Strip.
Mohammad Abu Taha went to dawn on a distribution site near Rafah (south) to queue and reserve his place: they were already “thousands to wait, all hungry, a bag of flour or a little rice and lentils”. “Suddenly, we heard shots […]. No way to escape. People started running, pushing themselves and jostling, children, women, the elderly, ”says this 42 -year -old man. “The scene was tragic: blood everywhere, wounded, dead.”
Repeated obstacles from Israel denounced
Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since May 27 in the Gaza Strip, “most” by the Israeli army while waiting for humanitarian aid, accused the UN on Friday. The Israeli army is denied targeting the beneficiaries of the aid, reporting “strokes” when people approach too close to its positions.
Refusal to deliver the permits of border passages, slowness of clearances, limitation of access points, dangerous routes … For months, international organizations also denounce repeated obstacles from the Israeli authorities which fuel disorder, according to these same organizations.
Looting for the benefit of traders
Part of the aid is pillaged by gangs – which often attack warehouses directly – and diverted in favor of merchants who resell it at exorbitant prices, according to several humanitarian sources and experts. “It is a kind of Darwinian experience where only the strongest survives: the most hungry do not have the energy to run after a truck, to wait hours in the sun, to fight for a bag of flour,” said Muhammad Shehada, guest researcher for the European Council for International Relations (ECFR).
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of looting the UN humanitarian aid, which sent most of the aid since the start of the war launched by the unprecedented attack on the Palestinian Islamist movement in October 2023.
Four distribution points for 2 million inhabitants
These accusations justified the total blockade imposed in Gaza between March and May, then the establishment, at the end of May, of the Gaza Humaninian Foundation (GHF), a private organization supported by Israel and the United States, which claims to have become since the main aid provider, but with whom the other organizations refuse to work. However, it only has four distribution points for more than 2 million inhabitants, described as “deadly trap” by the UN.
Our file on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
According to senior Israeli military officials mentioned by the New York Times On July 26, Hamas was certainly able to divert part of the aid provided by certain organizations, but there is “no evidence” that he regularly stole the food of the UN.
