2024-05-13 20:42:00
A screenshot from a video shows Israelis blocking the path of aid trucks and throwing aid packages on the ground. Credit: KAN2COME/Reuters
A shipment of humanitarian aid bound for Gaza was intercepted and looted by Israelis who opposed sending aid to Palestinians living in the besieged enclave.
Video from the Tarkumiya checkpoint near Hebron in the West Bank, which the convoy passed through, shows at least two looted trucks, with sacks and boxes of food strewn across the road.
Other images showed people blocking the path of aid trucks and throwing aid packages to the ground while trampling on the boxes.
It is unknown whether the aid came from Jordan or the Palestinian Autonomous Government.
The Regavim movement, which opposes the transfer of aid to Gaza, said: “We will not be the ‘silver platter’ of the Palestinian Autonomous Government.”
He added: “Unfathomable to the mind and heart, that precisely on the day of Remembrance of soldiers fallen in Israel’s battles and victims of hostilities, the Israeli government opens a supply route from the Palestinian Autonomous Government in Hebron to the Hamas terrorists in Gaza.”
Regavim and activists from another group, Tsav 9, participated in disrupting the convoy.
Israeli police said they have since opened an investigation and arrested several “activists” over the interception.
The United States escalated the incident to the Israeli government.
“We firmly believe that aid cannot and should not be interfered with,” US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said at a news conference.
“We have raised this incident with the Government of Israel and hope that it will take appropriate action,” he added.
The department previously condemned several other attacks on aid convoys by Israeli activists and called on Israel to hold alleged perpetrators accountable.
Palestinians caught in the middle of the war between Israel and Hamas are struggling to get enough food and water to survive. Northern Gaza is now in the midst of a “full-blown famine,” according to the World Food Programme.
Half of Gaza’s population is expected to face catastrophic hunger by mid-July, and all 2.2 million people will be unable to meet their food needs, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
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