Last week, I suggested that some of the people stealing aid in Gaza might not be Hamas, but regular criminals taking advantage of the high prices for goods.
Accounts from inside the Strip indicate it has become increasingly impossible for aid convoys to traverse the route from the south of the Strip, where Israel allows them to enter, to the north, where the worst hunger is.According to Mark, who asked to use a pseudonym due to the sensitivity of the subject, as Gazans have grown hungrier, relief trucks are increasingly being emptied by both desperate civilians and armed looters before they can reach their intended distribution points.Aid deliveries are exposed to lawless mobs and gun-toting criminals, making orderly distribution of aid rations to pre-approved beneficiaries a thing of the past.On Mark’s last time joining an aid delivery, several weeks ago, the convoy was assaulted by armed men.At around 4 a.m., as the motorcade of 10 trucks making their way to Gaza City passed Khan Younis and neared the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, the trucks were halted at an improvised roadblock set up by a local gang.“We tried to remove the obstacles off the road, but a group of people with donkey carts standing nearby the road came in and threatened us with knives. We tried to negotiate with them and offered to hand out one ration per person off the trucks. But they didn’t want that. Basically they wanted everything,” Mark said, adding that each truck was carrying about 430 food packages.These gangs, as well as groups of Hamas members, often hoard humanitarian aid from convoys, and resell it on the black market at highly inflated prices, ignoring the “not for sale” markings on each box of food or water.Eight trucks managed to make it through and then the gang members got “desperate,” Mark recalled.One of them pulled out a pistol, pointed it at the driver of the second-to-last truck, and threatened to kill him if he moved. The driver revved the engine and the looter fired a shot into the cabin, hitting the passenger seat.“At that point, we realized it was going to escalate very badly,” Mark said.The driver jumped out of the truck and was beaten up by the looters, who plundered his truck. He eventually managed to get back in his vehicle and return to Rafah. The other nine trucks made it to Gaza City.
Of course, some of the looters are Hamas but just moonlight as looters, since they have guns. Abu Ali Express documented one Hamas member who advertises on social media the water and diapers he has stolen, with his phone number.
Hamas may or may not be directly behind all the looters, but they benefit from the chaos.
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