The United Nations says that thousands of people are storming food warehouses in Gaza as civil order begins to collapse.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said thousands of Palestinians, desperate due to three weeks of blockade and mass bombing, stormed several of its warehouses in the Gaza Strip and took wheat, flour and other basic goods.
“This is a worrying sign that civil order is beginning to collapse after three weeks of war and tight siege,” said Thomas White, Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza.
On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres repeated his calls to stop the bloodshed and agree to a ceasefire to end the “nightmare.”
“The situation in Gaza is becoming more desperate by the hour. I regret that instead of a much-needed humanitarian truce, with the support of the international community, Israel has intensified its military operations,” Guterres said.
Israel imposed a complete siege – without food, water and electricity – on the Palestinian enclave, which has a population of 2.3 million people, following the Hamas attack on Israel. Israel allowed limited supplies of basic necessities and medicines. Efforts are now being made to obtain more supplies of food, water, fuel and medicine in the enclave, which has been subjected to intense bombardment since October 7.
‘Poor and inconsistent aid’
UNRWA provides necessities in Gaza, and many displaced Palestinians take refuge in UNRWA schools. Many hospitals have closed, and others are about to close due to fuel shortages.
UNRWA said, “Supplies in the market are running out, while the humanitarian aid arriving in the Gaza Strip on trucks from Egypt is insufficient.”
“The needs of communities are enormous, even if just to survive, while the assistance we receive is meager and inconsistent.”
Crowds stormed a total of four facilities on Saturday, said Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the agency. She said that the warehouses do not contain any fuel, which has been suffering from a severe shortage of supplies since Israel stopped all shipments after the war began.
One of the looted warehouses is located in Deir al-Balah, where UNRWA stores supplies from humanitarian convoys crossing into Gaza from Egypt.
White, the UNRWA director, said the mass displacement of people has placed enormous pressure on host communities. “Some families received up to 50 of their relatives who took refuge in one house,” he said.
“The current convoy system is set up to fail,” he added. “The limited number of trucks, slow operations, stringent inspections, supplies that do not meet the requirements of UNRWA and other relief organizations, and mostly ongoing fuel embargoes, are all a recipe for a failed system.”
UNRWA said its ability to help people in Gaza was completely reduced by air strikes that killed more than 50 of its staff and restricted the movement of supplies.
more than 613000 Gaza’s 1.4 million internally displaced people live in 150 UNRWA facilities across the besieged area.
But severe overcrowding, lack of privacy and inadequate sanitation put these schools at risk of a prolonged and severe public health crisis, increasing pressure on an already overburdened health care system that doctors and the Ministry of Health describe as in a state of complete collapse. .
The UN agency said some shelters are currently hosting 10 to 12 times their capacity.
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