Looters Strip Aid From About 100 Trucks in Gaza, U.N. Agency Says

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 in a statement 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. Most of the trucks were lost, some of the drivers were reportedly shot, and some vehicles sustained extensive damage, the agency said.

Only 11 trucks made it to their destination, said Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA spokeswoman currently in Gaza. Attackers shot the trucks’ tires out in order to stop and loot some of the vehicles, she said, and the agency is still waiting to hear how many casualties there were, and what types of injuries convoy members sustained.

The incident highlighted the difficulties aid workers face bringing aid into Gaza, despite months of attempts to help it arrive safely. The need is urgent. 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.

“People at the moment are absolutely desperate for anything,” Ms. Wateridge said. “We’re back at a stage where we’re seeing people literally fighting over a bag of flour.”

She said: “Israeli authorities continue to restrict a huge amount of the humanitarian response. Everything here is being strangled — food, flour, water — everything.”

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. Hamas also did not respond to a request for comment.

The convoy had been scheduled to enter Gaza on Sunday, but the Israeli military instructed it to leave a day earlier “at short notice via an alternate, unfamiliar route,” he U.N. agency said.

Ms. Wateridge told The New York Times that her agency was instructed a day before the scheduled transport that the convoy had to leave within 30 minutes — a huge logistical risk for drivers, who had little mobile data access to plan for the new routes safely.

Aid agencies have said for months that woefully inadequate food supplies have led to looting, hoarding and profiteering, exacerbating the shortages, and that the only solution is a dramatic increase in deliveries.

UNRWA said that the frequent looting of humanitarian aid convoys was also 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 it said “continue to disregard their legal obligations under international law” to ensure that sufficient aid safely reached Palestinians in the territory.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has continued to deteriorate in the 14th month of Israel’s military offensive against Hamas, which attacked southern Israel in October 2023.

Official Israeli government figures this month showed that Israel, which controls all the crossings into Gaza, was letting significantly less food and fewer supplies into the territory than in earlier months, even as a 30-day deadline set by the Biden administration passed without a substantial improvement in conditions there.

Israeli officials have denied creating obstacles to aid deliveries. They have accused aid agencies of failing to distribute the aid that it has allowed into Gaza, and have said that raids on aid trucks by Palestinians have prevented proper distribution.

The threat of looting and attacks by armed gangs has hindered relief groups from delivering assistance in southern Gaza. The Israeli campaign in Gaza toppled much of the Hamas government, and there is no civilian administration to take its place.

Since Israel went to war in Gaza against Hamas, vowing to wipe out the group, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has resisted both domestic and international pressure to devise a postwar governance plan for the enclave to help fill the resulting void.

In a speech on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said that while Israeli operations in Gaza had “eradicated a significant portion of Hamas’s military capabilities,” he has now asked the Israeli military to propose a plan to eliminate the group’s ability to govern, as well.

Such a plan “also relates to eliminating their capability to distribute food, distribute humanitarian aid,” he said. “We would like to ensure humanitarian aid distribution that would not be looted by Hamas and others.”

In much of Gaza, there are no police officers to prevent chaos as organized crime groups fill the vacuum. Their affiliations — whether with Gazan clans or armed groups like Hamas — are unclear.

Ms. Wateridge said Israel’s current restrictions have made it extremely difficult for aid agencies to oversee and track the distribution of aid, or to assess who is behind the looting of their convoys.

The Israeli authorities do not allow the agency to use its own trucks and drivers to deliver aid within Gaza, which means it must contract for them inside the territory and transfer the cargo. That often leaves UNRWA with shaky information about where different supplies are within a convoy and how many vehicles there are.

Aid workers must rely on the contractors to inform them of what is happening, as was on Saturday when the trucks were attacked. To the best of the agency’s knowledge, Ms. Wateridge said, the attackers not only looted the aid but even took the trucks’ fuel and batteries.

Humanitarian convoys, Ms. Wateridge said, are not allowed to have armed guards. They rely on massive metal grills and armor placed around the cab of the truck to protect the driver.

“It looks like something out of a sci-fi movie,” she said. “They try and armor the vehicles as best as possible and protect themselves. And they and they drive very, very fast and just try and try and not stop and just keep going. That’s the only protection they have.”

Adam Rasgon contributed reporting from Jerusalem.