CNN
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Nearly 80 aid trucks traveling in southern and central Gaza were looted by hopeless civilians on Saturday, and the UN World Food Programme said they were looted as hunger situations worsened in the Palestinian enclave.
In a statement issued in X, WFP said 77 trucks had crossed into Gaza, loaded with flour. They all “were stopped halfway through and filmed foods that were primarily hungry people trying to feed their families.”
“Eighty days after the entire lockdown, the community is hungry, and they are no longer willing to pass through food,” he added.
Nahed Shekhiber, the head of the association, told CNN that 20 trucks carrying wheat flour have been plundered near Netzarim in central Gaza, stripping around 50 flour trucks of cargo from Khan Eunice in southern Gaza.
“The humanitarian situation at #Gaza is in spiral. Border closures, hunger and despair have destabilized the delivery of aid,” WFP wrote in a post on X on Saturday.
“We must flood our communities with food to restore hope, relieve fear and prevent further confusion.”
The video shows dozens of people at Khan Yunis carrying bags of flour. A similar scene unfolds in Netzarim, where a burst of gunfire was heard as the crowd rushed to grab a bag of flour.
The hangars are spreading across Gaza, with UN agencies warning of imminent hunger without dramatically expanding the aid distributed to it. There have been several cases of looting.
The United Arab Emirates said last week that only one of the 24 trucks it organized had reached its planned destination.
Chaos broke out last week when tens of thousands of hungry Palestinians arrived at two new food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The incident killed 11 people and injured dozens of people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
GHF, a controversial private foundation supported by Israel and the US, says it continues to expand its distribution across four hubs in central and southern Gaza. On Saturday, the company distributed a total of 28,800 boxes of 30 trucks of food to its hub in Rafa in southern Gaza, adding, “Today’s meal distribution is the largest ever, five times more than yesterday.”
The UN aid agencies have criticised the GHF’s aid mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles and poses risks for Palestinians.
Philip Lazarini, executive director of UNRWA’s executive director (Palestinian territory), who reportedly sent 900 trucks to Gaza over the past two weeks as Israel’s lockdown partially relaxed, reportedly said that the 900 trucks have been sent to Gaza over the past two weeks. The UN also says that once Gaza arrives it is struggling to coordinate the safe distribution of aid within Gaza.
“That’s only 10% of the daily needs of the people of Gaza. The aid currently being sent makes ocky laugh at the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Lazarini posted an X, comparing the amount of 600 to 800 trucks that come into Gaza every day during a ceasefire earlier this year.
“We can stop the massive starvation we have today. We need political will,” he said.
