CAIRO: Increased looting of food stores and community kitchens in the Gaza Strip shows growing desperation as hunger spreads two months after Israel cut off supplies to the Palestinian territory, aid officials say.
Palestinian residents and aid officials said at least five incidents of looting took place across the enclave on Wednesday, including at community kitchens, merchants’ stores, and the UN Palestinian refugee agency’s (UNRWA) main complex in Gaza.
Israeli forces are continuing their aerial and ground offensive across Gaza in the war with Palestinian militant group Hamas that began nearly 19 months ago. Israeli air strikes on Thursday killed at least 12 people, the territory’s health ministry said.
The looting “is a grave signal of how serious things have become in the Gaza Strip — the spread of hunger, the loss of hope and desperation among residents as well as the absence of the authority of the law,” said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) in Gaza.
Thousands of displaced people broke into the UNRWA complex in Gaza City late on Wednesday, stealing medicines from its pharmacy and damaging vehicles, said Louise Wateridge, a senior official for the agency based in Jordan.
“The looting, while devastating, is not surprising in the face of total systemic collapse. We are witnessing the consequences of a society brought to its knees by prolonged siege and violence,” she said in a statement shared with Reuters.
Hamas deployed thousands of police and security forces across Gaza after a ceasefire took effect in January, but its armed presence shrunk sharply since Israel resumed large-scale attacks in March.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza Hamas-run government media office, described the looting incidents as “isolated individual practices that do not reflect the values and ethics of our Palestinian people.”
He said that despite being targeted, Gaza authorities were “following up on these incidents and addressing them in a way that ensures the preservation of order and human dignity.”
CHILD MALNUTRITION
Thawabta said Israel, which since March 2 has blocked the entry of medical, fuel, and food supplies into Gaza, was to blame. Israel says its move was aimed at pressuring Hamas to free hostages as the ceasefire agreement stalled.
Israel has previously denied that Gaza was facing a hunger crisis. It has not made clear when and how aid will be resumed.
Israel’s military accuses Hamas of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.
The United Nations warned earlier this week that acute malnutrition among Gaza’s children was worsening.
Community kitchens that have provided lifelines for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of closure due to lack of supplies, and face an additional threat from looting.
“This is going to undermine the ability of the community kitchens to provide meals to a great number of families, and an indication that things have reached an unprecedentedly difficult level,” PNGO’s Shawa told Reuters.
More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s campaign in Gaza, Palestinian officials say.
It was launched after thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Much of the narrow coastal enclave has been reduced to rubble, leaving hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in tents or bombed-out buildings.
Looting of Gaza stores signals worsening hunger crisis
https://arab.news/ggj93
Looting of Gaza stores signals worsening hunger crisis
- Aid workers say raids are result of desperation
- Kitchens that feed hundreds of thousands risk closure
Syrian refugee returns set to slow as donor support fades
- Some aid officials say Syria is one of the first crises to be hit by aid funding cuts because the end of the war means it no longer counts as an emergency, eligible for priority funding
GENEVA: More than 3 million Syrians have returned home since the collapse of Bashar Assad’s rule a year ago but a decline in global funding could deter others, the UN refugee agency said on Monday.
Some 1.2 million refugees in addition to 1.9 million internally displaced people have gone back home following the civil war that ended with Assad’s overthrow, but millions more are yet to return, according to UNHCR.
The agency said much more support was needed to ensure the trend continues.
“Syrians are ready to rebuild – the question is whether the world is ready to help them do it,” said UNHCR head Filippo Grandi. Over 5 million refugees remain outside Syria’s borders, mostly in neighboring countries like Jordan and Lebanon.
RISK OF REVERSALS
Grandi told donors in Geneva last week that there was a risk that those Syrians who are returning might even reverse their course and come back to host states.
“Returns continue in fairly large numbers but unless we step up broader efforts, the risk of (reversals) is very real,” he said.
Overall, Syria’s $3.19 billion humanitarian response is 29 percent funded this year, according to UN data, at a time when donors like the United States and others are making major cuts to foreign aid across the board.
The World Health Organization sees a gap emerging as aid money drops off before national systems can take over.
As of last month, only 58 percent of hospitals were fully functional and some are suffering power outages, affecting cold-chain storage for vaccines.
“Returnees are coming back to areas where medicines, staff and infrastructure are limited – adding pressure to already thin services,” Christina Bethke, Acting WHO Representative in Syria, told reporters.
The slow pace of removing unexploded ordnance is also a major obstacle to recovery, said the aid group Humanity & Inclusion, which reported over 1,500 deaths and injuries in the last year. Such efforts are just 13 percent funded, it said.
Some aid officials say Syria is one of the first crises to be hit by aid funding cuts because the end of the war means it no longer counts as an emergency, eligible for priority funding.
Others may have held back as they wait to see if authorities under President Ahmed Al-Sharaa make good on promises of reform and accountability, including for massacres of the Alawite minority in March, they say.
