Gaza aid crisis: Armed groups seize 77 relief trucks
On the night from Friday to Saturday, armed groups seized dozens of trucks carrying humanitarian aid that had entered the Gaza Strip. Local aid organizations report that in Gaza, which is under attack from Israel, there is severe hunger, and the aid that arrives with difficulty is just a drop in the ocean of needs.
Israel eased its blockade of the Gaza Strip at the beginning of May, but aid organizations are struggling to deliver humanitarian aid to the area. The situation on the ground is catastrophic.
Gaza: 77 trucks seized, aid plundered
The Israeli military continues its offensive, which resumed in March. On Saturday, positions of snipers and a Hamas weapons production facility were bombed, among other targets. The ongoing actions have led to the displacement of a large portion of Gaza's over two million residents to increasingly smaller areas, mainly along the coast and around Khan Yunis.
The United Nations warns that the situation in the Gaza Strip is currently the worst since the beginning of the conflict, which has been ongoing for 19 months now. Despite the resumption of limited supplies, the entire region's population is at severe risk of hunger.
Israel, which completely blocked supplies to the enclave at the beginning of March, has begun allowing individual convoys from organizations such as the World Food Program (WFP). These convoys deliver flour to bakeries in Gaza, but almost every transport attempt ends with plundering by starving residents. Such incidents occurred last night.
The World Food Programme (WFP) reported that nearly 80 days of total blockade have left communities in such severe hunger that they are no longer willing to remain passive as aid convoys pass. The organisation dispatched 77 trucks filled with flour to Gaza the previous night, but according to its account, none of the vehicles completed their route. The food was taken mainly by desperate individuals seeking to feed their families.
The organisation stresses that trust can only be regained through continuous and large-scale humanitarian support. Once that trust is reestablished, it believes that broad, direct distributions to families in various parts of the Gaza Strip can resume. It also points out that it has enough provisions to sustain the entire population of Gaza for two months.
Armed attackers seize aid
In a conversation with Reuters, Amjad Al-Shawa, who heads the association of Palestinian aid organizations, pointed out that armed factions are exploiting the deteriorating conditions. On Saturday morning, a portion of the World Food Programme convoy was halted near Khan Yunis. Al-Shawa acknowledged the extreme hardship—highlighting that many have been without bread for weeks—but firmly condemned the looting carried out by armed individuals. He also emphasized the urgent need for hundreds more aid trucks and attributed the crisis to what he described as a deliberate starvation strategy pursued by Israel.
Meanwhile, the American organization Gaza Humanitarian Foundation operates its meal distribution points, but many aid groups refuse to cooperate, accusing GHF of lacking neutrality. The scale of support remains dramatically insufficient. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, states this clearly: "The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery to the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch," Lazzarini wrote on platform X.
