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.
My friend was in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He told me that they were delivering relief food to refugees camped out of the city of an-Nasirya during the Battle of an-Nasirya. While offloading the food from a 7-ton truck onto the ground, there were armed and armored Marines protecting the food to hand it out evenly and orderly. There were women and children present. After a bit, the refugees got too restless from desperation and started storming the food. The Marines could totally have gotten aggressive to set an example, but that would have been ridiculous. The people were starving and living in tents made out of bed sheets and trash out in open fields under the Sun. The Marines moved out of the way and just ensured that no one got hurt in the chaos. War is chaos.
Civilization is 3 missed meals from collapse....
Usually this quote is a warning about preparing for natural disasters, we don't usually have humans trying to design total social collapse on their neighbors.
I think they're a bit over three meals now, more like 3 weeks worth of meals missed.
And yet those neighbors allow the very people that want total social collapse to build tunnels under their homes and businesses and establish bases and torture chambers in their hospitals.
Ah yes, because your average Gazan could totally stand up to the armed militia that's in charge of every aspect of life in the strip.
Nice Spin, I must have missed the news reports of the total water, food, energy, and medical embargo the Palestinians were inflicting on the Israeli people.
Hamas destroyed their infrastructure to build rockets. Literally tore up pipes that were used to supply water to build rockets. The Palestinians are suffering as a direct result of Hamas.
Quite right, the citizens of Gaza have two oppressors right now, Hamas and the IDF... saying the children (50% of Gaza <18) deserve to starve because of guilt by association is also evil.
Collective punishment invites collective reprisals.... magnifies violence. If your ever on the side of killing children your on the wrong side. Which means... there are more then two sides here.
Who the fuck said anyone deserves to starve‽ Hamas is a cancer and must be ripped from the face of the earth. They hold the entirety of the blame when they kill Westerners indiscriminately and use their own citizens as shields.
I must have misunderstood your comments.... there was a very heavy implication the Gazan people deserved it. Do you support allowing humanitarian aid to be delivered to the gazan people?
Hamas is evil, to be sure, but they are a symptom not a cause. Apartheid and oppression are the root cause.
Also - Holding "Western" lives higher then Arab lives is a tiny bit racist....
Maybe Israel shouldn't have funded it
Okay buddy I’m sure you’d have acted differently when the alternative is getting shot, and you can’t really argue that they’re worse than the israeli government treats you.
People were all too happy to give the Russian people a pass when they invaded Ukraine. It wasn't "Russians" who were killing Ukrainians, it was "Putins Russia" that was responsible for this "Putins Invasion". The same kind of narrative is never extended when the parties involved aren't white.
There are a good number of logically consistent people out there who defend the Palestinians. I've only been seeing this number increase lately. This is happening despite the media not being logically consistent and pretty much unequivocally supporting the Zionists in Israel.
How does this argument ever make sense to you? Do you truly consider people to be one monolithic group with no dissenting opinions? The exact same comparison was made, just as now people are saying it’s the Israeli prime ministers actions, which is actually very fair given the amount of israeli citizens showing very natural disdain for the genocide.
Did you just try excuse a war crime with "it could be worse"?
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.
They are squatting in ruins at this point. Those people need help.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
JERUSALEM, Oct 29 (Reuters) - 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.
Aid supplies to Gaza have been choked since Israel began bombarding the densely-populated Palestinian enclave in response to a deadly attack by its ruling militant group Hamas on Oct. 7.
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UNRWA has said that its ability to help people in Gaza has been completely stretched by air strikes that have killed more than 50 of its staff and restricted the movement of supplies.
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Established in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war, UNRWA provides public services including schools, primary healthcare and humanitarian aid in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
The original article contains 269 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 26%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Oh no the un aid center is providing aid
Well it's not optimal that aid can't be distributed in the best way possible.
As UN officials basically said: It's completely understandable.
Yeah I know lol I was just making jokes