War in Gaza: Relief supplies for Gaza: Why you often don’t arrive

The warnings of a famine in the contested Gaza Strip are getting louder and louder. For a week now, Israel has had more aid deliveries in the largely destroyed coastal strips, in which around two million people live under unbearable conditions. But many of the relief goods do not arrive with those they need the most. Because a large part of the deliveries are already looted on the way in the chaos prevailing after 22 months, by hungry civilians – or, as it was said from German security circles, by the Islamist Hamas or other criminal organizations.

Branging around a sack of flour

Hatem Abu Rami, a 42-year-old father of five children, describes the despair on the streets. “When the trucks reach our area, they have already been stormed by hundreds of people. There is no organization, no security, just a wave of hungry families who run to the aid deliveries.”

He saw himself how people tore up the sacks on the truck before they even stopped. “I saw two men who spent a sack of flour while children were crying next to them,” says the man from the city of Gaza, who has currently found refuge with his family in a tent in Deir al-Balah. “This is not theft – that’s hunger. People just try to survive.”

Always fatal incidents near the distribution centers

In March, Israel imposed an almost complete blockage of aid deliveries in the Gaza Strip, where it wages war against Islamist Hamas. This should increase the pressure on the terrorist organization, to release the 50 remaining hostages. From May onwards, smaller quantities of aid deliveries were allowed again. For a week now, Israel has not only allowed air drops after international pressure, but also grants around 200 trucks from UN and other organizations every day.

The controversial Gaza Humanitrian Foundation (GHF), which is also supported by the United States in addition to Israel, started distributing relief goods at the end of May. This runs in parallel to the use of international aid organizations and should ensure that Hamas does not take food.

But in the vicinity of the four GHF centers in the Gaza Strip there were always fatal incidents. According to the health authority controlled by the Hamas, around 1,500 people have been killed in trying to receive relief supplies. Auxiliary seekers often have to cross dangerous war zone to get aid deliveries.

Every auxiliary delivery as a chaotic and dangerous event

According to Nisrin al-Assay, 29-year-old volunteer of a local aid organization in Chan Junis, the lack of a functioning distribution system has transformed any auxiliary delivery into a chaotic and dangerous event: “We try to form rows that do not hold people, but it never lasts long.”

People are “weak, exhausted and desperate,” says the young woman. “Sometimes armed people come, tear the control, push everyone aside and load the relief goods into their own vehicles.” She saw how UN workers reversed “because it was just too dangerous”. The civilian population never gets the help. “It is heartbreaking. We only have to calm people down while they have to watch how the food is driven away.”

Shocking videos from emaciated Hamas Geiseln

Terror organizations in the Gaza Strip have recently published videos of hostages that are emaciated to the bones. One of them is also German citizens. The pictures also provided horror and outrage internationally.

They apparently want to put pressure on Israel and show that the hostages are also affected by the lack of food. A strong contrast to the emaciated hostage was, however, in the last published video of the forearm of a kidnapper, which looked well -fed.

Mutual blame

Israel repeatedly accuses Hamas of bringing relief goods under their control, the organization rejects this. The UN also say that Israel has not presented any evidence of this. However, residents of the Gaza Strip confirm that Hamas was also involved in the looting.

The United Nations accused Israel of creating chaotic circumstances through the warfare in the Gaza Strip that made an orderly distribution of relief goods impossible. Israel, on the other hand, accuses the UN that he has not distributed aid deliveries available in the Gaza Strip.

Aid deliveries over four transitions to Gaza

A spokesman for the responsible cogat authority said on request that four transitions into the Gaza Strip were currently active, the most important of them Kerem Schalom in the south and Zikim in the north. The distribution of the relief supplies is the responsibility of the international organizations, said the spokesman. Israel lets the deliveries drive into the coastal strips. 1,200 trucks have been picked up by UN and other international organizations there for a week.

According to the Israeli army, in addition to Germany, France, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt have thrown food packages over the Gaza Strip. However, this use was criticized by the UN side as expensive and insufficient.

After his recent visit to the Gaza Strip, Ricardo Pires from the UN Children’s Aid Unicef described the situation as “absolutely apocalyptic” and warned of a dramatic increase in the number of victims-more and more children would be injured, killed and suffered from malnutrition. For 88 percent of the area in the Gaza Strip there are now eviction calls from the Israeli army. This requires the two million inhabitants of the coastal strip, which are already densely populated, to pose together to twelve percent of the area.

The WORLD FOOD programs of the United Nations warned that over half a million people in the Gaza Strip have already been threatened by a famine. The organization is doing everything to distribute vital food aid to families.

WFP published a video on the platform X, on which you can see hundreds of young men run on trucks with aid deliveries, stop them, loot and run away with food boxes. In view of these circumstances, the organization demands: “In order to be able to achieve all people threatened by starvation safely and permanently, we need a ceasefire – now.”