Food trucks in Gaza raided, underscoring aid distribution problems

CAIRO/JERUSALEM: UN trucks delivering food to Gaza were stopped and looted overnight, Gaza residents and merchants said on Wednesday, hours after desperate Palestinians overran a distribution site run by a U.S.-backed group trying to start delivering aid.

The incidents underscore the problems getting supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing worsening hunger and starvation after a weeks-long Israeli blockade.

On Tuesday, Israeli troops fired warning shots as crowds rushed to a distribution point run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed group that began supplying aid under a new system which Israel hopes will prevent aid reaching Hamas.

The United Nations and other international aid groups have refused to take part, saying the scheme violates the principle that aid should be distributed neutrally, based only on need.

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As the new system began, the Israeli military also allowed 95 trucks belonging to the U.N. and other aid groups into the enclave, but three Gaza residents and three merchants said a number of trucks were targeted by looters.

One Palestinian transport operator said at least 20 trucks belonging to the U.N. World Food Programme were attacked shortly before midnight.

“Some trucks made it through, then it seems that people became aware of that,” one witness told Reuters via a chat app, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

“They woke up, some placed barriers on the road intercepted and stole the goods.”

Israeli forces, which resumed their operation in Gaza in March following a brief truce, continued strikes on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people including eight members of the family of a local journalist, Palestinian health officials said.

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Screening

To qualify for aid under the new system, people seeking food are supposed to undergo screening to ensure they are not linked to Hamas, a measure that has heightened Palestinian suspicion of the operation.