UN trucks delivering food to Gaza were stopped and raided overnight, Gaza residents and merchants said on Wednesday, the 28th of May, hours after desperate Palestinians overrun the US-backed group’s food distribution point. Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Office said it believed 47 people were injured at a food distribution point in Gaza on Tuesday, according to Reuters and BBC.
The incidents are evidence of the problems faced by hundreds of thousands of Palestinians suffering from hunger after weeks of Israeli blockade.
On Tuesday, Israeli troops fired warning shots as crowds rushed to a distribution point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, a US-backed group that has begun delivering aid under a new system that Israel hopes will keep aid out of the hands of Hamas.
In order to receive food aid under the new system, it is necessary to check whether people are linked to Hamas. However, witnesses said that there was no identification process.
With the introduction of the new system, the Israeli military also allowed 95 trucks belonging to the UN and other aid groups to enter the enclave, but three Gazans and three merchants said that several trucks had fallen victim to looters.
One Palestinian transporter said at least 20 trucks belonging to the UN World Food Programme were attacked shortly before midnight.
“What we saw yesterday was a very vivid example of the dangers of food distribution,” said Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
“We are exposing people to death and injury,” he told reporters in Geneva, adding that 47 people were wounded in shelling during the chaos.
A senior UN official said the UN was still gathering information but that most of the injuries were from gunshots.
The Gaza Hamas-run health ministry said one person had died and 48 others were wounded.
The IDF said it was verifying the reports. An IDF spokesman said that troops fired “warning shots” in the air at an area near the Gaza Humanitarian Fund facility in Rafah, but that they had not fired at people.
Footage circulated on social media showed crowds tearing down fences in an attempt to get at boxes of supplies as private security contractors operating in the area retreated.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation claimed that its American security guards withdrew to allow a “small number” of people to take food and that operations have since returned to normal.
Additional footage shows the chaos at the aid distribution site in Rafah.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says that its American security sub-contractors fell back in order to allow “a small number” of people to take food, and that operations have since returned to normal. https://t.co/7Wyba46JKE pic.twitter.com/VSREFazhJB
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Israel imposed a suspension of aid deliveries in March, accusing Hamas of depriving civilians of goods; Hamas denies this accusation.
UN officials say they have seen no evidence that the militant group has looted trucks since Israel eased deliveries earlier this month.
But Hamas has urged Gazans not to go to the four distribution points in southern Gaza set up for the new system. It has denied Israeli accusations that it is blocking access to these sites.
The UN and other international aid groups have refused to participate in the new aid distribution system, saying that the scheme violates the principle that aid should be distributed neutrally on the basis of need alone.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called it “sad and disgusting” that the UN and other groups are not participating in the new aid distribution system.
“There were queues of people receiving food that had not been stolen by Hamas. The way it has been distributed has been effective so far,” he told Reuters.