DayofPal– A convoy carrying food provided by UN agencies UNRWA and the World Food Program was violently looted on Saturday after entering Gaza, resulting in the loss of 98 trucks.
An official from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that 109 food trucks were looted after being instructed by Israel to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route from the Karem Abu Salem crossing with Gaza.
Louise Wateridge, senior emergency officer for UNRWA, said on Monday that the looting is one of the worst such incidents in the more than 13-month-old Israeli assault on the besieged and bombarded enclave.
“This incident highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza,” Wateridge said, adding that injuries occurred in the incident.
A UN aid official said on Friday that people’s access to Gaza aid had reached a low point, with deliveries to parts of the besieged north of the enclave all but impossible.
In the north, namely in Jabalia, Beit Hanoon, and Beit Lahia, virtually no food has been allowed to enter for more than a month, ever since Israeli forces renewed a ground assault in the area, which has been completely split from the rest of the Gaza Strip.
Haaretz said last week that 29 Humanitairian aid organizations had accused Israel of allowing armed gangs to crack on their aid trucks entering Gaza and loot them after taking high taxes from the drivers. It added that the Israeli army further attacked aid security personnel and Gaza police to allow gangs’ looting.
Israel has banned UNRWA from operating in the country and has cut ties with it. The agency cautioned on Monday that a halt to its activities in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem would block it from coordinating massive aid efforts inside Gaza.
“There is no plan B,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday.
The only alternative to UNRWA’s work in Gaza is to allow Israel to run services there, Lazzarini said, repeating calls for countries to resist the Israeli ban on the organization, which is set to come into effect in January.
UNRWA provides assistance to nearly six million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
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