Looting is crippling Gaza’s food supply despite Israel’s pledge to deal with gangs, sources say

By David Gauthier-Villars, Nidal al-Mughrabi, John Davison

– Israel has failed to crack down on armed gangs attacking food trucks in Gaza, despite a promise to do so in mid-October to help end famine in the Palestinian territory, according to three UN and US officials familiar with the matter.

The commitment, made behind closed doors, was seen as a success because, since the beginning of the war in October 2023, the international community has struggled to find support for Israel to improve the dire humanitarian situation in the war-torn region, three senior officials. said.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) remains focused on its fight against Hamas and has taken only limited action against a number of gangs operating in parts of Gaza under Israeli control, according to three officials, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the information.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office referred questions about the pledge and aid operations in Gaza to the military. An IDF spokesman declined to comment on what was agreed in October and what has been done to stop the looting.

“Israel has taken drastic measures to allow large-scale aid to Gaza,” the spokesman said.

Now, UN and US officials say gang violence has run out of steam, crippling the very fabric on which most of Gaza’s 2.1 million citizens depend for survival.

In October, $9.5 million worth of food and other goods – about a quarter of all humanitarian aid sent to Gaza that month – was lost due to attacks and looting, according to an unprecedented number of incidents compiled by the UN and humanitarian agencies. .

An investigation into the November robbery is ongoing, but initial information indicates it was very serious, two people familiar with the matter said.

In mid-November, a convoy of 109 trucks chartered by UN agencies was attacked minutes after the IDF was ordered to withdraw from the southern border of Gaza at night, several hours before the agreed schedule, according to five people familiar with it. about the incident, including two who were present.

Standing by, the IDF did not intervene, the five people said. An IDF spokesman declined to comment on the incident.

Georgios Petropoulos, coordinator of the UN’s emergency response agency, OCHA, said that aid organizations could not solve the problem of lawlessness there alone.

“It has become too much for humanitarian aid to be resolved,” he told reporters on his return from Gaza on Thursday.

The US State Department declined to comment on Israel’s commitment in October, but said looting remains a major obstacle to aid delivery.

“We continue to press Israel on the need for increased security to ensure that ships with critical aid reach Palestinian citizens throughout Gaza,” the spokesman said.

An Israeli security official, who asked not to be identified, said looting has decreased in recent weeks but remains a challenge. “We have learned a lot, in cooperation with international organizations,” the official told reporters on Tuesday. “It is very difficult not to rob at all.”

HUMANITARIAN NADIR

Fourteen months into Israel’s war with Hamas, the international aid apparatus is confused: UN organizations and humanitarian organizations say that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached one of its worst points because it is unable to deliver and distribute enough food and medicine to the people of Gaza.

A new round of ceasefire talks this month has renewed hope that Hamas will release Israeli hostages it has held since the October 7 attack on Israel last year, and that solutions can be found to boost humanitarian aid.

However, for now, aid operations are plagued by disagreements between Israel and most of the international community over who is responsible for feeding Gaza’s residents and maintaining peace in the small enclave.

The UN and the United States have repeatedly called on Israel to comply with international humanitarian law, and provide security and aid to the people of Gaza. But Israeli authorities say their only job is to facilitate the delivery of food and medical supplies, and that they are always doing more out of goodwill.

The disruption has made planning and coordinating aid operations more difficult, said Jamie McGoldrick, who was the UN Humanitarian Territory Officer in the Occupied Palestinian Territory from December to April.

To assess the depth of the hunger crisis, US officials say they are looking at the percentage of people in Gaza that UN aid agencies can provide food aid to each month.

In November, it was 29%, down from 24% in October, but a significant drop from the height of the war of more than 70% in April, according to UN data.

Mohammad Abdel-Dayem, the owner of the Zadna 2 bakery in central Gaza, said that he and his 60 employees have been out of work for a month, unable to provide bread to the 50,000 people they usually feed.

“We are not getting flour because of looting,” he told Reuters by phone last week.

An IDF spokesperson refuted the claim that some bakeries are not getting flour.

But the World Food Program’s daily review of bakery operations seen by Reuters showed that 15 of the 19 bread factories the UN agency supports in Gaza were out of business as of December 21, and that Zadna 2 had been closed since November 23 due to a lack of flour.

Some of the stolen food goes to the market, Abdel-Dayem said, but in quantities that only a few people can afford.

Aid workers say they are also facing difficulties reaching northern Gaza, where the IDF began fighting Hamas in October. An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 civilians are still trapped there, with little food and medical aid.

An IDF spokesman said a dedicated humanitarian response was carried out in the area.

In addition to the fighting in the north, more than a dozen UN and US officials have traced the deterioration of humanitarian conditions inside Gaza over the past three months to the decision of the Israeli authorities in early October to freeze the export of food sold by businesses.

Those shipments account for nearly all fresh food and half of all supplies to Gaza between May and September, according to Israeli military data.

Their abrupt suspension caused a significant drop in supplies and made the attack trucks a more lucrative proposition, UN and US officials said.

In October, 40% of aid collected at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza was looted, according to incident figures seen by Reuters.

Israeli authorities have opened a new crossing, Kissufim, but bandits have again attacked convoys along that route, the UN said.

The gangs are made up of ethnic and clan lines, and include some criminals who were released from prisons in Gaza during the Israeli offensive, according to aid and transport workers in Gaza.

The UN and the United States have pressed Israel to restore commercial shipments, saying flooding Gaza with food would lower prices and deter poachers, but Israeli authorities have refused to do so.

DESTROYED TRUCKS

At the beginning of the war, the UN wanted to rely on unarmed Gaza police to protect the convoys, but Israel opened fire, saying it could not tolerate any army tied to Hamas.

Visiting the Kerem Shalom crossing in late November, an Israeli official said it was the UN’s duty to distribute aid to Gazans once Israel allowed food across the border.

Delivering a lot of food, Col. Abdullah Halabi – wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet – told reporters that the aid was “waiting to be picked up by international organizations.”

But OCHA’s Petropoulos said gang violence makes this almost impossible.

He and other aid workers said they were surprised by the attack on 109 trucks on November 16 about four kilometers from the crossing.

Gang gunmen surrounded the line and forced drivers to follow them to nearby areas where they stole flour and food items from 98 trucks, according to five people familiar with the matter.

The drivers and their trucks that were finished were released in the morning, they said.