Starving Gazans take away food from aid convoy as crisis looms large

Tel Aviv, Dec 18

The situation in Gaza is turning from bad to worse as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continues its heavy bombing and shelling in the enclave.

With people running short of food after over two months of war and only a small number of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip, starving Palestinians went desperate seeing aid trucks and forcibly entered inside to take away food from it.

Several hungry and desperate Palestinians jumped into aid trucks to get food and other supplies in Gaza's Rafah area on Sunday. It is to be noted that Rafah is the only border crossing into Gaza from Egypt, and used by aid agencies for supply of food, medicines and fuel into Gaza under the strict monitoring of IDF soldiers.

Sources in UN aid agencies working in Gaza told IANS that several Palestinians surrounded the aid trucks after they drove in through the Rafah crossing and forced many trucks to stop, climbed on them, pulled out food and water boxes and passes them off to people waiting down.

The humanitarian situation has become very desperate, with around one million people displaced from their homes and driven to South Gaza forcibly by the Israeli troops.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have warned that there is an extreme shortage of essentials and the residents of Gaza have never ever experienced hunger of this kind.