Aid agency says route is too dangerous as armed gangs loot several convoys
People shout slogans during a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip. Pic/AFP
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Sunday it is halting aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing into Gaza because of the threat of armed gangs who have looted recent convoys.
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The decision could worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the cold, rainy winter sets in, with hundreds of thousands of people living in squalid tent camps and reliant on international food aid. Experts were already warning of famine in the territory’s north, which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza, said the route leading to the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel is too dangerous on the Gaza side. Armed men looted nearly 100 trucks traveling on the route in mid-November, and he said gangs stole a smaller shipment on Saturday.
Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 6; another air strike in Rafah kills four
Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least six people overnight, including two young children who died in the tent where their family was sheltering, medical officials said on Sunday.
The strike in the Muwasi area, a sprawling tent camp housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people, also wounded the children’s mother and their sibling. A separate strike in the southern city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, killed four men, according to hospital records. Israeli said it was not aware of the strikes.
Meanwhile, a projectile fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen set off air raid sirens in central Israel. The Israeli military said it intercepted the projectile before it entered Israeli territory.
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