 UN warehouse in central Gaza has been broken into by "hordes of hungry people," resulting in deaths and injuries){kind=link}
A World Food Programme (WFP) UN warehouse in central Gaza has been broken into by “hordes of hungry people,” resulting in two reported deaths and several injuries. The incident occurred at the Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, where video footage showed crowds taking bags of flour and cartons of food as gunshots rang out.
The WFP stated that humanitarian needs in Gaza have “spiralled out of control” after an almost three-month Israeli blockade that was recently eased. Food supplies had been pre-positioned at the warehouse for distribution, and the WFP emphasized the need for an immediate scale-up of food assistance to reassure people that they will not starve.
“Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance. This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve,” the WFP said. The organization had consistently warned of alarming and deteriorating conditions on the ground, and the risks imposed by limiting humanitarian aid to hungry people in desperate need of assistance.
The incident highlights the challenges faced by humanitarian organizations in delivering aid to Gaza. Israeli authorities reported that 121 trucks carrying humanitarian aid, including flour and food, were transferred into Gaza last week. However, UN Middle East envoy Sigrid Kaag described this as “comparable to a lifeboat after the ship has sunk” when everyone in Gaza is facing the risk of famine.
Meanwhile, the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has set up a private aid distribution system, bypassing the UN. However, the UN has expressed concerns about the effectiveness and ethics of this approach. Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN’s humanitarian office for the occupied Palestinian territories, stated that there is no evidence that Hamas is diverting aid coordinated through credible humanitarian channels.
“The real theft of relief goods since the beginning of the war had been carried out by criminal gangs which the Israeli army allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point in Gaza,” Whittall said. The UN has argued that a surge of aid like the one during the recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas would reduce the threat of looting by hungry people and allow it to make full use of its well-established network of distribution across the Gaza Strip.
The EU has also expressed concerns about the situation, with EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas saying that Israeli strikes in Gaza “go beyond what is necessary” to fight Hamas. She also stated that the EU does not support the new aid distribution model that bypasses the UN and other humanitarian organizations.