On Tuesday’s broadcast of WBUR’s “Here and Now,” UNRWA Communications Director Juliette Touma stated that the recent theft from an aid convoy in Gaza was not like the multiple instances of looting of aid trucks that they’ve seen before and was rather an incident of “organized crime” and blamed Israel for the organized theft in Gaza by arguing that “what needs to happen is for the Israeli authorities, as the occupying power, to secure, make sure that these convoys are protected throughout, not only entering…Gaza, but until they reach the warehouses of the U.N. safely.”
Touma said, [relevant remarks begin around 3:40] “[B]asically, this is not looting. This is what I’m trying to say. This is organized crime. It’s a different level. We’ve had several incidents of looting, people who are desperate coming to our trucks, helping themselves to what they can because they are desperate, because they’re hungry. This was different. And so, what needs to happen is for the Israeli authorities, as the occupying power, to secure, make sure that these convoys are protected throughout, not only entering…Gaza, but until they reach the warehouses of the U.N. safely. That’s what needs to happen.”
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