UN reports unprecedented looting of almost 100 Gaza aid trucks

Two United Nations agencies told Reuters on Monday that almost 100 trucks with humanitarian aid for Gazan civilians were violently looted. In terms of volume, it is reportedly the largest theft of aid supplies in Gaza since the war started in October last year. A whopping 99 out of 109 trucks in the aid convoy were raided.

“This … highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza,” Louise Wateridge, UNRWA Senior Emergency Office, told Reuters without specifying the identity of the perpetrators.

“⁠The urgency of the crisis cannot be overstated; without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen, further endangering the lives of over two million people who depend on humanitarian aid to survive,” she added.

The looting reportedly took place after the convoy entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing through what Wateridge described as an unfamiliar route and at short notice.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric revealed that there was “severe damage to the trucks and in some cases, total loss of cargo on the trucks,” adding that it was the worst looting incident in Gaza “in terms of volume” since the beginning of the war.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry claimed that Hamas forces had killed some 20 “gang members” during the looting incident.

“More than 20 members of gangs involved in stealing aid trucks were killed in a security operation carried out by security forces in cooperation with tribal committees,” the Gazan ministry stated. It described the operation as “the beginning of a broad security campaign that has been long planned and will expand to include everyone involved in the theft of aid trucks.” Hamas has reportedly threatened to use “an iron fist” against all looting attempts in Gaza.

While some looting has been carried out by members of independent tribes in Gaza, Hamas terrorists have themselves been involved in looting. In November, the KAN 11 channel released exclusive footage that showed Hamas terrorists beating up Gazan civilians while stealing humanitarian aid earmarked for the civilian population in the coastal enclave.

However, local smuggling and looting gangs have increasingly exploited Hamas’s partial loss of control in Gaza. These criminal gangs now control the flow of many products including tobacco, according to a recent Washington Post report. Cigarettes, which have become a luxury product and a currency in Gaza, reportedly sell for up to a staggering $1,000 per pack.

Georgios Petropoulos, head of the Gaza sub-office of the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), revealed that due to their local scarcity, cigarettes are smuggled inside, for instance food products and cans.

“Recently, we’ve found cigarettes hidden inside cans and other food products. This suggests the smuggling process starts during packaging, likely in Egypt,” Petropoulos said.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced that it has "targeted preventive measures against the looters and is consistently working to facilitate the transfer of aid to civilians." Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official told The Washington Post that Jerusalem is aware that “some looters have ties to Hamas, and some do not.”