CNN
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Jihad Al Shafi was still waiting a few hours after Al Haj Bakery handed out his final bread on Thursday.
Like many in the crowd standing outside a bakery in central Gaza, Al Shafi lined up early in the morning and predicted freshly baked pita from the first delivery of flour to enter the besieged territory from early March. He was forced to leave empty-handed. Because billions of away were left with food from the promised trucks in southern Gaza.
“We see people waiting for bread, but no one has received it,” Al Shafi told CNN. “It’s important for our staff to understand our suffering and act on it.”
For an hour on Thursday afternoon, the bakery “experienced an unprecedented invasion,” mob came down at the facility with meal scrambles. A desperate hand reached out from the small window separating the workers in the crowd, fortunate enough to secure a bag of bread. The chaos disappeared as quickly as bread, leaving no scores left.
Inam al-Burdeni walked an hour from the refugee camp in Al-Magazi to the bakery, but when she arrived, she was already to find the crowd. She left empty-handed too. “It’s exhausting and we feel lost and abandoned,” said Al Burdeni. “People are desperate. It’s not the promise of the sky, it’s time for action. Hamas should leave!”
This week, Israel began allowing the first trucks equipped with food and humanitarian supplies since imposing a complete blockade of humanitarian goods on Gaza on March 2.
According to the United Nations, only a small portion of the aid came before the war, with 500-600 trucks coming to Gaza a day. On Thursday, Kogat claimed that “there is no food shortage in Gaza,” but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said this week that Israel has allowed Gaza “a basic amount” to “prevent the humanitarian crisis.”
“The aid ongoing is the needle in the haystack,” said Philip Lazarini, director of the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees on social media. “The meaningful and uninterrupted flow of aid is the only way to prevent the current disaster from swirling even further.”
And some hold up as not all aid reaches the Palestinian population, and they are being plundered on their way to unsafe transport routes and distribution points. The truck, which Israel recently issued several evacuation warnings, did not reach northern Gaza.
Later Thursday night, 30 aid trucks in southern Gaza and central Gaza were attacked and destroyed, according to Nahid Shuheiber, head of the Territorial Transport Association. At Deir Al-Balah, an armed gang fired and plundered with trucks, he said. When Hamas-backed local security team arrived to secure a convoy, Hamas government media office said multiple Israeli strikes targeted the site and killed six people. CNN contacted the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) for comment.
The World Food Program (WFP) said 15 trucks were looted in southern Gaza and are on their way to a bakery backed by UN organizations.
“Hunger, despair and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, contribute to the growing anxiety,” WFP said in a statement Friday. “We need to get much more food aid to be delivered faster, more consistent, more consistent and safer routes, as was done during the ceasefire.”
Palestinian NGOS networks have condemned the looting of humanitarian trucks. “Trucks designed to load flour and supply bakeries in the governors of Gaza and northern regions have been looted, taking away children and families from already enduring the serious hunger of basic food needs,” the umbrella organization said.
The Joint US Israel Aid Program, known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is scheduled to begin operation of four distribution sites by the end of the month. However, the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations have refused to cooperate with the new group.
The new plan has been criticized by humanitarian officials who warn that it is inadequate and that it could put civilians at risk and encourage forced evacuation for them.
UN Aid Chief Tom Fletcher wrote about X last week, saying that he shouldn’t waste time on alternative Gaza aid programs.
On Friday, the Gaza Bakery Owners Association announced that Bakeries would refuse to operate “in light of the difficult situation facing the Gaza Strip,” and called on WFP to first distribute flour to their families.
The association’s chairman, Abdel Nasser al-Ajrami, appealed to Israel to allow international organisations to enter “flower, sugar, yeast, salt and diesel fuel” to “intervene in urgently.”
