No aid reaching Gaza’s warehouses as Israel derails truck routes, kills convoy security despite humanitarian ‘tactical pauses’

None of the aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip during the “tactical pause” the Israeli military announced on Sunday are reaching distribution warehouses, eyewitnesses and civilians working to guard the trucks from theft told Mada Masr in recent days.

Instead, Israel has blocked the passage of the few trucks being permitted to enter and undermined efforts to secure them from theft, in at least one instance directly targeting and killing civilian companies and volunteers working to guard them.

Palestinian security guards accompanying a convoy that entered northern Gaza on Monday night were killed by Israeli drone and tank fire, while the night previously, Israel’s military ordered another convoy in south Gaza to stop moving, leaving it exposed to armed theft shortly afterward.

In both incidents, huge crowds of people who gathered to obtain aid supplies took what they could; a situation that humanitarian agencies warn will do nothing to guarantee that aid reaches those most in need as famine in the strip worsens.

One of the aid convoys derailed before it could reach distribution warehouses entered the strip from Israeli-held territory on Monday night through the northwestern Zikim crossing.

Security for the convoy was to be handled by young volunteers who have joined clan committees in northern Gaza, one of the volunteers told Mada Masr, to ensure that aid reaches warehouses and protect the deliveries from looting.

“We headed to the Sudaniyya area on Monday,” the volunteer said, describing a northwestern neighborhood of Gaza near the crossing. The convoy was delayed at the crossing and only entered the strip late at night, they said. As a result, a growing crowd of people gathered in the area to await the supplies.

“We began stopping some looters from approaching the site where aid trucks are often robbed,” the source said.

It was then that Israeli forces attacked the security volunteers. “As soon as the trucks moved out of the Zikim crossing, Israeli surveillance drones targeted an aid security group, killing and injuring several,” they said. “Then a tank shell struck another group just a few meters ahead of us in the middle of Sudaniyya Street, killing and wounding more.”

“Within moments, it turned into a battlefield,” the volunteer continued, describing Israeli vehicles advancing to the middle of the street and opening fire at the security volunteers.

“Naval vessels also began firing in our direction at the same time, covering the area in heavy gunfire from every direction. Many were killed and wounded in the area.”

The volunteer described seeing armed groups, which have sprung up as social cohesion has been eroded after months of starvation, who were spared the Israeli fire at the scene. “The Israeli forces didn’t target the armed gangs who stood to the side, observing the situation,” they said.

Essam al-Aydy, who was also in the area and witnessed what took place, said Israeli soldiers opened fire on both the aid convoy’s security team and civilians, leaving many dead and wounded.

“I was standing a few meters away from the Khaldy mosque,” he said, “but I could see the Israeli vehicles advancing into the middle of Sudaniya Street. They shelled the security team, then pulled back toward the vicinity of the Zikim area. Their forces then allowed looters to move in and rob the aid trucks.”

Aydy said the trucks were carrying aid from the World Food Program and from the United Arab Emirates’ Al-Fares al-Shahm initiative, all of which was looted.

The volunteer also saw the supplies looted quickly after the security team’s targeting. “I managed to hide behind a rock and slowly pulled back until I reached a somewhat safe area,” they said. “I saw looters advancing, stepping over the bodies of the dead to reach the aid trucks.”

Eleven of the security personnel, including members of the clans and families organization, were killed in the attack, the Gaza Government Media Office said in a statement on the incident on Monday night. 

“After confirming their deaths, the Occupation authorities opened the way for trucks to enter, only to fall into the hands of criminal gangs and thieves under their direct protection,” the media office said.

Israel “is deliberately preventing aid from reaching its warehouses or those who deserve it, which constitutes a deliberate and ongoing crime against besieged civilians,” the office continued.

Looting also took place for all of the supplies in a convoy of aid trucks that entered south Gaza on Sunday night.

Around 150 aid trucks had set out from Egypt earlier that day and crossed from the Egyptian side of the Karam Abu Salem crossing, a source in the Egyptian Red Crescent told Mada Masr at the time, where they waited for hours before Israel approved their entry.

The meager number of trucks ultimately allowed into Gaza never reached distribution warehouses and were diverted by Israeli orders into combat zones, where armed groups looted them under the watch and fire of Occupation forces.

A source in a security company tasked with securing the aid entering the strip Sunday night told Mada Masr that the Israeli military ordered the company staff to stop in the Miraj area, which falls within the Israeli-held zone of Rafah and is designated as “a dangerous combat zone.” The military threatened to target the trucks if the drivers did not comply, the source said.

Once stopped in Rafah, residents approached the trucks and began taking what they could, an eyewitness told Mada Masr. Palestinian accounts posted footage of huge crowds trying to take aid supplies from the trucks inbound from Egypt in the early hours of Monday morning.

The eyewitness said that as crowds were taking supplies, armed gangs came out from inside the city, seizing the cargo and threatening civilians at gunpoint. The looting took place near Israeli military positions, according to the source, who added that the forces looked on and opened fire intermittently on the crowd, causing deaths and injuries.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it airdropped 20 boxes of aid into Gaza on Monday in coordination with Jordan and the UAE, following similar airdrops the previous day. Gaza’s Government Media Office said that Sunday’s airdrops landed in “red zones” off-limits to civilians under Israeli maps and amounted to no more than two truckloads of aid.

While Israel continues to announce “secure corridors” for aid entry that have never materialized, Palestinians are entering a fifth month of siege and starvation.

Civilian testimonies suggest that the only impact of the daily “tactical” pauses so far is a minimal easing of the soaring inflation that has pushed prices for basic goods in the strip to unaffordable levels.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Monday afternoon that 14 more children died within 24 hours due to hunger and malnutrition, bringing the total number of starvation-related deaths to 147, including 88 children.

Though the World Food Program has expressed appreciation for the pauses, it has said previously that distributing food parcels directly to families is the most effective way to prevent widespread starvation and that the lack of facilitations for its drivers and staff has made such efforts impossible.

“We are not getting the needed volume of humanitarian assistance in, despite the assurances that we can do so, " WFP emergency response director, Will Ross, said on Monday.

The agency also announced that famine indicators are at their worst across the strip since 2023,  repeating on Tuesday that all crossings need to be opened for multiple deliveries per day, and that the agency needs more routes opened to it.

Only an agreed ceasefire will make that possible, it stated.