Nearly 80 aid trucks traveling through southern and central Gaza were looted by desperate civilians on Saturday, the UN World Food Programme said as famine conditions worsen in the Palestinian enclave.
In a statement issued on X, the WFP said 77 trucks had crossed into Gaza loaded with flour. All of them “were stopped along the way, with food taken mainly by hungry people trying to feed their families.”
It added that “after 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving – and they are no longer willing to let food pass them by.”
WFP said in a post on X on Saturday that “the humanitarian situation in #Gaza is spiraling. Border closures, hunger, and desperation have made aid delivery volatile — trucks are looted, people risk everything for a bag of flour.”
“To restore hope, ease fear and prevent further chaos we must flood communities with food – now.”
Videos showed dozens of people in Khan Younis carrying away sacks of flour. Similar scenes played out in Netzarim, where bursts of gunfire could be heard as crowds rushed to grab sacks of flour.
Hunger has spread in Gaza, with UN agencies warning of impending famine without a drastic scaling up of aid entering the territory and being distributed across it. There have been multiple incidents of looting.
The United Arab Emirates said last week that only one of 24 truckloads it had organized had reached the planned destination.
Last week, chaos broke out when tens of thousands of starving Palestinians arrived at two new food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). According to the Palestinian health ministry, 11 people were killed and dozens injured in that incident.
The GHF, a controversial private foundation backed by Israel and the US, says it is continuing to scale up distribution at its four hubs in central and southern Gaza. It said that on Saturday it had distributed 30 truckloads of food totaling 28,800 boxes at its hub in Rafah in southern Gaza, adding that “today’s meal distribution was the largest to date and five times more than yesterday.”
The UN’s aid agencies have criticized the GHF’s aid mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles and raises the risks for Palestinians.
Philippe Lazzarini, executive director of UNRWA – the UN agency that serves Palestinian territories – said 900 trucks had reportedly been sent into Gaza over the past two weeks, since an Israeli blockade was partially relaxed. The UN also says that it is struggling to coordinate safe distribution of aid inside Gaza once it arrives.
“That’s just over 10 per cent of the daily needs of people in Gaza. The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery to the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Lazzarini posted on X, comparing the quantity to the 600 to 800 truckloads coming into Gaza daily during the ceasefire earlier this year.
“The current mass starvation can be stopped. It takes political will,” he said.