After deadly attack, Gaza truck association suspends crucial aid deliveries to UN centers

The truck association that delivers vital aid to distribution centers across Gaza suspended operations on Wednesday night after the latest in a recent spate of attacks turned deadly, the head of the association told Mada Masr. 

One driver was killed and three others were injured in the attack, which saw armed men open fire on a caravan of 50 trucks in Deir al-Balah, Nahed Shehaibar, the head of the Private Transport Association in Gaza, told Mada Masr. Several trucks were damaged, rendering them inoperable as there are no spare parts to repair them, he added.

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Video showing one of the trucks damaged in Wednesday night’s attack. Courtesy: Nahed Shehaibar, the head of the Private Transport Association in Gaza.

The truck association will halt aid delivery operations to protect its drivers until safety measures are ensured, Shehaibar said. The step is a significant blow to aid distribution in the strip, where most of the population has been forced into starvation by Israel’s refusal to allow the delivery of aid since March.

With the association out of action, people who need to access food aid in Gaza must instead make the long trek to one of the distribution centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, an upstart company linked to Israeli and American military and intelligence agencies. Since beginning operations last week, over 100 Palestinians have been killed and wounded by Israeli military forces positioned near the distribution sites.  

After the latest attack on Tuesday, which left at least 27 people dead, the GHF closed its centers and began conducting extensive renovations to the Rafah distribution center, constructed in what is known as the “Red Zone,” an area that only the Israeli military has access to.

Israeli authorities permitted only 50 trucks to enter Gaza on Wednesday through the Karam Abu Salem crossing after extensive coordination efforts, according to Shehaibar. The trucks, carrying flour and other supplies, made their way from the crossing via the Kissufim gate and through the Gaza envelope road before reaching Deir al-Balah, where they were intercepted and looted.

Traveling along the Salah Eddin road near the town of Deir al-Balah, truck drivers came across a group of armed men, who repeatedly tried to obstruct the convoy’s route by setting up ambushes. When those efforts proved ineffective, the armed men began shooting at the trucks and their drivers, Shehaibar said.

An eyewitness told Mada Masr that dozens of armed individuals were already waiting for the trucks as they entered Deir al-Balah. As soon as the convoy arrived, heavy gunfire broke out in the direction of the convoy, forcing the vehicles to stop. Hundreds of civilians tried to seize some of the aid, but many came under fire, leading to injuries among the crowd.

The attackers transferred the contents of some aid trucks into other vehicles, leaving nothing, the eyewitness said. 

Four trucks were hijacked, their drivers assaulted and their cargo emptied, according to Shehaibar.

Operations will remain suspended, he added, until international organizations or official authorities can provide guarantees for the protection of the trucks and their drivers, or establish a secure corridor for the trucks to travel through until they reach the warehouses. The association has contacted international agencies to inform them of the decision and to hold them accountable for safeguarding drivers and protecting aid trucks.

Armed attacks have become common in Gaza in recent weeks. Eyewitnesses speaking to Mada Masr have described assaults across the strip, targeting bakeries, the food stocks of a hotel, a commercial mall and warehouses used by local and international food relief projects, with some observing simultaneous attacks launched by Israeli forces to target Hamas police working to restore security at the sites.

Israel’s support for these armed attacks are engineered to cause the collapse of social order, according to Ahmed Tanany, the director of a research center based in Gaza who has been documenting the phenomenon. Israel can leverage the chaos to introduce alternative supply and distribution lines under its exclusive control, he added.

Israel has increasingly adopted a strident tone toward UN relief agencies and has worked to undermine their efficacy. 

Over the course of more than 600 days of genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli Finance Bezalel Smotrich has called for starvation to be imposed on the strip’s people. In an interview with The Economist on Wednesday, he said that the UN-led aid distribution “kept Gazans reliant on Hamas and allowed the group to profit from it. Breaking that link is crucial to Israel’s victory.” 

International aid agencies have hit back. United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher called the Israeli aid distribution plan a "cynical sideshow, a deliberate distraction, a fig leaf for further violence and displacement" of Palestinians in the enclave. In a mid-May press release signed by several leading humanitarian organizations, the signatories pointed to the fact that “Israeli officials have acknowledged they hope to see some countries ‘begin to take in Palestinians,’ thereby reducing the ‘gap’ between the aid capacity and the population size.”

Amid the floundering rollout of the GHF’s operations, it appeared last week that Israel was willing to allow the UN to resume what is widely agreed to be the most effective delivery of flour: heads of households would coordinate with the WFP to receive the food staple directly to their homes. 

Two civil society representatives in the Gaza Strip told Mada Masr last week that the WFP was expected to begin distributing flour to families instead of bakeries at the start of this week. 

However, the roughly 100-truck caravan carrying flour to WFP sites was intercepted by armed groups. 

An eyewitness from southern Khan Younis, near the “red zone” in Rafah, told Mada Masr that some aid trucks were already empty upon leaving the area, suggesting that the armed groups who looted the trucks were allowed to do so by Israeli forces.

As control over the aid distribution network continues to be weaponized, people in Gaza continue to suffer.

Cases of malnutrition surged during the total blockade, with the Gaza Government Media Office reporting that it played a part in the deaths of over 300 people since March.

And while aid has entered Gaza in recent weeks, Israel’s sabotaging of its distribution has meant it is not reaching those who need it most. Looters have turned to the private market to sell bread and flour at extortionate prices to the few who can afford it. 

The amount of aid currently being delivered to the strip “makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” United Nation Relief and Works Agency Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini stated last week. He called for the UN, including UNRWA, to be granted access to deliver aid and uphold human dignity.