Nearly 90% of aid trucks collected by the United Nations along Gaza’s border didn’t make it to their intended destination since mid-May due to looting from starving Palestinians or “forcefully armed actors,” officials said.
The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) found that of the 2,604 aid trucks that entered the war-torn enclave from May 19 to Aug. 5, only 295 vehicles, or 12%, were spared from theft or mass looting, according to the agency’s Monitor & Tracking Dashboard.
Israel has repeatedly blamed Hamas for looting aid trucks, however, the UNOPS report did not name the groups that were taking the food.
The looming famine in Gaza has caused more and more desperate people to raid the incoming food trucks, with UNOPS finding that in July alone, 94% of the 1,161 vehicles that crossed the border were looted.
Ever since humanitarian aid was allowed to trickle back into Gaza, images of hungry Palestinians surrounding the few UN vehicles cleared to cross the border have become commonplace.
While Israel has blamed Hamas for the systematic looting of aid, the New York Times cited Israeli sources last month as saying that the Israeli military never found direct proof of looting by the terror group.
Seeking aid through the Israeli-backed aid effort has also proved perilous to the enclave’s nearly 2 million refugees, according to the UN’s human rights office — with more than 1,000 people reportedly killed in shootings at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid cites in recent weeks.
Israel has repeatedly denied that its forces have fired on aid-seeking Palestinians, with the military claiming to have only fired warning shots after groups were spotted trying to approach the food sites before they opened.
The dire situation in Gaza has left food security experts to warn of a “worst-case scenario famine” as scores of people die from malnutrition-related cases.
As it faces global backlash over the ongoing war, Israel has maintained that the death and suffering falls on Hamas, which has rejected cease-fire deals calling for the terror group to disarm and exit the Gaza Strip.
Hamas said it would only agree to a deal that establishes a permanent end to the war, with the terror group demanding Monday that all humanitarian corridors be open in exchange for allowing the Red Cross to administer aid to the remaining hostages.
The future of aid distribution to the hostages and refugees remains unclear after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved a plan for the full military occupation of Gaza.
