Amid the ongoing humanitarian and severe food and medicine crisis in war-ravaged Gaza, a United Nations agency has confirmed a Saturday incident which saw a convoy of 109 aid trucks come under attack by desperate Palestinians.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has described the worst such incidnet since the 13-month-old Israeli military assault on Hamas and the Gaza Strip began. A UN official called said it "highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza." The UN further said the situation in the Strip has reached a low point.
"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." The UN didn't identify who carried out the assault on the large convoy.
In a new Monday development, Hamas said it has shot at Palestinians who carried out the robbery of aid trucks, resulting in 20 killed. In a highly unusual statement Hamas said it shot and killed over 20 people who it called "gang members":
The Hamas TV channel Al-Aqsa quoted Hamas interior ministry sources in Gaza as saying that over 20 gang members involved in looting aid trucks were killed during an operation carried out by Hamas security forces in coordination with tribal committees.
It said anyone caught aiding such looting would be treated with "an iron fist".
This seems an unprecedented first wherein Hamas conducts a mass slaughter of other Palestinian groups seeking to access aid.
Details of who exactly was behind the looting remain unclear, and Hamas describing that "gang members" were behind it seems dubious or at least a surprising development. The more desperate things have gotten in the Strip, the more that violence spirals out of control.
However, the NY Times and many other outlets have described that the initial weekend theft of over 100 trucks was conducted by armed gunman, and that the truck drivers were forced to abandon their vehicles at gunpoint.
The UNRWA, said it happened at Kerem Shalom border crossing in southern Gaza. Given the large-scale nature of the theft, those attacking the convoy were likely lying it wait, and thus the plot had some level of pre-planned organization.
Prior footage from many months ago shows the break down in security at aid stations and warehouses in the Gaza Strip:
Some large swathes of the Stip have been in a state of lawlessness since the Israeli military ground invasion began. Israeli officials have argued that this underscores the need to keep a permanent IDF military presence there.
Several top Hamas leaders have been assassinated over the past several months, and it remains unclear of the degree to which the terror group still has a governing and command structure intact.
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