Gazans break into aid centres, taking flour and supplies, UN says

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Gazans break into aid centres, taking flour and supplies, UN says
reuters.com

Thousands of Gaza residents broke into warehouses and distribution centres of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) grabbing flour and "basic survival items", the organisation said on Sunday.

"This is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a statement.

One of the warehouses, located in Deir al-Balah, is where UNRWA stores supplies from the humanitarian convoys crossing into Gaza from Egypt.

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Why wasn’t the UNRWA already giving out all these supplies? Why did they have to break in?

Maybe greedy people trying to stockpile. Maybe people who are trying to bypass ration system to get food to those people who were unable to stand in line. It’s many people with what are most likely a variety of personal reasons, but all are desperate to survive and stuck in a horrible inhumane situation.

Two years the west was getting into fist fights for toilet paper. People trying to moral high ground this one are special.

There's always a bottleneck when distribution of anything is happening and desperate people are more likely to be unwilling or unable to wait.

So why did they break in? Every one will have their own specific reasons, but desperation is the most likely reason.

The condition for the convoys getting through was that Hamas wouldn't be allowed to have any. Presumably they had a distribution system set up or were in the process of setting one up to do just that, which failed to reach enough people.

israel controls Gaza's borders, including sea and air space, and blocks a lot of humanitarian aid.

The article says that people in Gaza broke into UN warehouses and took the supplies. So the supplies must have been already inside Gaza.

I did say a lot of, they've still managed to receive some. But what I mean is, it's really hard to have personnel there to distribute it. Especially right now when not even Gazan Palestinians are allowed to be in parts of Gaza

Yeah, that makes sense, especially after they started refusing UN staff visas, for talking about their war crimes.