Gaza aid fails to reach most needy amid chaos, fires, gunfire
GAZA CITY
The trickle of food aid Israel allows to enter Gaza after nearly 22 months of war is seized by Palestinians risking their lives under fire, looted by gangs or diverted in chaotic circumstances rather than reaching those most in need, U.N. agencies, aid groups and analysts say.
After images of malnourished children stoked an international outcry, aid has started to be delivered to the territory once more but on a scale deemed woefully insufficient by international organizations.
In Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, emaciated Palestinians rushed to pallets parachuted from a plane, jostling and tearing packages from each other in a cloud of dust.
"Hunger has driven people to turn on each other. People are fighting each other with knives," Amir Zaqot, who came seeking aid, told AFP.
To avoid disturbances, World Food Program (WFP) drivers have been instructed to stop before their intended destination and let people help themselves. But to no avail.
"A truck wheel almost crushed my head, and I was injured retrieving the bag," sighed a man, carrying a bag of flour on his head, in the Zikim area, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip while waiting for aid since May 27, the majority by the Israeli army, the United Nations said on Aug. 1.
The Israeli army denies any targeting, insisting it only fires "warning shots" when people approach too close to its positions.
Some of the aid is looted by gangs, who often directly attack warehouses, and diverted to traders who resell it at exorbitant prices, according to several humanitarian sources and experts.
"It becomes this sort of Darwinian social experiment of the survival of the fittest," said Muhammad Shehada, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
"People who are the most starved in the world and do not have the energy must run and chase after a truck and wait for hours and hours in the sun and try to muscle people and compete for a bag of flour," he said.
Jean Guy Vataux, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, added: "We're in an ultra-capitalist system, where traders and corrupt gangs send kids to risk life and limb at distribution points or during looting. It's become a new profession."
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of looting aid supplied by the U.N., which has been delivering the bulk of aid since the start of the war.
But according to senior Israeli military officials quoted by the New York Times on July 26, Israel "never found proof" that the group had "systematically stolen aid" from the U.N.
According to Israeli and Palestinian media reports, an armed group called the Popular Forces, made up of members of a Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab, is operating in the southern region under Israeli control.
The ECFR describes Abu Shabab as leading a "criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks.”
The Israeli authorities themselves acknowledged in June that they had armed Palestinian gangs opposed to Hamas, without directly naming the one led by Abu Shabab.
Far-right minister leads prayer at Al Aqsa compound
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Aug. 3 led a large group of settlers in a provocative march and prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, defying of longstanding rules prohibiting non-Muslim worship there.
More than 1,250 Israeli settlers stormed the mosque compound in the morning hours performing Talmudic rituals, singing and dancing under heavy police protection.
The visit occurred on Tisha B’Av, a Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of two ancient temples once located at the site.
Footage released by a Jewish organization, Temple Mount Administration, showed Ben-Gvir walking through the compound, while other videos circulating online appeared to show him praying.
In a statement, Ben-Gvir also said that he prayed for Israel's victory over Hamas in in Gaza and for the return of Israeli hostages. He repeated his call for Israel to conquer the entire enclave.
Ben-Gvir has visited the site multiple times in the past, but it is rare for him to organize or lead prayer there.
Al-Aqsa, administered by a Jordanian Islamic trust under a decades-old status quo, allows Jewish visits but forbids prayer.
The Jerusalem Governorate warned of the seriousness of this large-scale, organized incursion, calling it a “systematic violation” of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the rights of Palestinian worshippers.
