Hamas ministry says over 20 killed in aid-looter operation in Gaza

Gaza City - Gaza’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry said on Nov 18 at least 20 people were killed in an operation targeting “gangs” that looted trucks bringing aid into the war-torn territory threatened with famine.

“More than 20 members of gangs involved in stealing aid trucks were killed in a security operation carried out by security forces in cooperation with tribal committees,” the ministry said in a statement.

“Today’s security operation will not be the last,” it said, adding that “the phenomenon of truck thefts... has severely impacted society and led to signs of famine in southern Gaza”.

The statement called the operation “the beginning of a broad security campaign that has been long planned and will expand to include everyone involved in the theft of aid trucks”.

A source from the European hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis told AFP it had received the bodies of 15 people killed in connection with Nov 18’s anti-looter operation.

An interior ministry source told AFP the 20 were killed in connection with the looting on Nov 16 of a World Food Programme convoy bringing aid into Gaza.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a press briefing in New York on Nov 18 that only 11 of the convoy’s 109 trucks made it to the warehouse after entering through the Kerem Shalom crossing near the Egyptian border.

He said there was “severe damage to the trucks and, in some cases, total loss of cargo on the trucks”.

Mr Dujarric called the incident the worst instance of looting in Gaza in terms of volume. He said the convoy had been initially planned for Nov 17, but Israel’s military told it “to depart on short notice via an alternate, unfamiliar route”.

Israel, which imposed a total siege on the Hamas-ruled territory in the early stages of the war in 2023, often blames the inability of relief organisations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid.

Aid distribution is further complicated by shortages of fuel, war-damaged roads and looting, fighting in densely populated areas and the repeated displacement of much of Gaza’s 2.4 million people.

Several humanitarian officials told AFP on condition of anonymity that almost half the aid that enters Gaza is looted, especially basic supplies.

A UN-backed assessment on Nov 9 said famine is looming in the northern Gaza Strip amid increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid.

The Israeli military has questioned the report’s credibility. AFP