Getting suppies to those in need in Gaza has internal crime problems besides Israeli attacks….
A large convoy of trucks carrying aid was “violently looted” in the Gaza Strip over the weekend and its drivers forced at gunpoint to unload supplies, the main United Nations agency that helps Palestinians said on Monday, calling it one of the worst such incidents of the war.
The agency, known as UNRWA, said in a statement on Monday that the convoy of 109 trucks had been driving from the Kerem Shalom border crossing in southern Gaza when it was looted on Saturday. Most of the trucks were lost, some of the drivers were reportedly shot, and some vehicles sustained extensive damage, the agency said.
Only 11 trucks made it to their destination, said Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA spokeswoman currently in Gaza. Attackers shot the trucks’ tires out in order to stop and loot some of the vehicles, she said, and the agency is still waiting to hear how many casualties there were, and what types of injuries convoy members sustained.
The incident highlighted the difficulties aid workers face bringing aid into Gaza, despite months of attempts to help it arrive safely. The need is urgent. Earlier this month, a U.N.-backed panel said that all of Gaza faced a risk of famine between now and April, with the north at particular risk……
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The typically congested streets of Beirut were unusually empty on Monday. Schools that had temporarily shuttered earlier this fall when war first escalated were closed again. Many people who had come back to Lebanon’s capital after fleeing to the northern mountains a month ago had headed north once more.
Since Israeli airstrikes hit two neighborhoods within Beirut on Sunday and another on Monday evening, a sense of disbelief and frustration has washed over the city. In recent weeks, the initial shock of the intensified war between Hezbollah and Israel had given way to a feeling that relative safety had returned to Beirut, as the pace of strikes slowed and the city center remained largely unscathed.
Now that tenuous sense of security has once again been shattered — and a city already weary from two months of war is coming to grips with yet another escalation of violence.
“There is no security anymore,” said Hussein Zahwi, 49. “There is no security at all.”
On Monday morning, Mr. Zahwi stood across from one of the buildings hit in the Mar Elias neighborhood the day before. Wisps of smoke were still wafting from its shattered store windows. The strikes ignited a large fire that burned through the night and blackened the facade of the building. An acrid smell hung in the air. The strikes on Sunday killed at least six people and injured around two dozen more, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health….
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Nov 18, 2024 – ISW Press
The continued looting of humanitarian aid trucks demonstrates that Hamas’ internal control remains limited and severely weakened. Armed groups looted 98 of 109 humanitarian aid trucks that entered the southern Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom border crossing on November 16.
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