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.

  • BOMBS@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Dulce Maria@lemdro.id
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    1 year ago

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

    • eric@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

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

    • Gormadt
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • blazera@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

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

        • blazera@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          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

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    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.

    (tldr: 2 sentences skipped)

    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.

    (tldr: 1 sentences skipped)

    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!