Israel has blocked food from Gaza and for nearly 60 days, Palestinians struggle to feed their families. The situation escalated to a deep humanitarian crisis with violent bend.
Armed groups and others have started looting warehouses of supplies in northern Gaza as desperation spikes, locals and aid workers said Saturday as Israel’s latest airstrikes killed more than a dozen people.
Unidentified people, both armed and unarmed, have been looting U.N. and aid groups’ warehouses, as well as bakeries and shops since Wednesday, according to witnesses, organizations in Gaza and messages that were circulated among security officials for aid groups and were seen by The Associated Press.
Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended the latest ceasefire with Hamas in March, throwing the territory of over 2 million people into what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis in nearly 19 months of war, reports AP from TEL AVIV.
Israel has said the blockade and its renewed military campaign are intended to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages it still holds, most of them thought to be dead, and to disarm the Palestinian militant group.
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights previously warned that starving civilians as a military tactic is a war crime.
Aid groups have said Gaza’s civilian population is facing starvation, and there is concern that the desperation could lead to a breakdown of law and order. Although there have been incidents of looting by armed gangs throughout the war, aid workers say this week’s looting marks an escalation, as it was less organized and reached urban areas.
Looting ramps up
The ransacking in Gaza City began Wednesday evening after reports that aid trucks had entered the north from the south, said one aid worker who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to address the media. A security report circulated among aid agencies that night saying a group of armed people had broken into a bakery, driven by rumors that it held food supplies.
The storage was empty and the group then looted a soup kitchen affiliated with an international aid group in the al-Shati camp, the report said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said its staff were safely evacuated on Wednesday after thousands of Palestinians breached its Gaza City field office and took medications. Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer at UNRWA, called the looting “the direct result of unbearable and prolonged deprivation.”
The ransacking continued through Friday night. Three witnesses told the AP that dozens of armed men stormed into at least two U.N. warehouses, pushing past police and local security guards who were protecting the facilities. The warehouses were nearly empty before the men arrived.
“There were organized gangs,” said Ahmed Abu Awad, a resident of western Gaza City, where some of the looting took place.
Yahya Youssef, another witness, said that for two straight nights on western Gaza City’s streets, he saw dozens of men engaged in gunfights with police and security guards who protect U.N. and aid groups’ facilities.