A new problem is plaguing humanitarian aid convoys trying to deliver relief to starving Gazans: attacks by organized crowds seeking not the flour and medicine carried by the trucks but the cigarettes smuggled in the cargo.
Cigarettes have become increasingly scarce in Gaza, which is under strict blockade, and currently sell for $25 to $30 each. United Nations and Israeli officials say coordinated attacks by groups seeking to sell smuggled cigarettes for profit pose a huge obstacle to the delivery of much-needed aid to southern Gaza.
Israeli authorities closely scan everything entering and leaving Gaza through Israeli-run checkpoints. But the cigarettes have been slipping inside aid trucks for weeks, mostly through the Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza.
To evade Israeli inspections, Egyptian smugglers hid them in bags of flour, diapers and even watermelons donated by the United Nations, according to aid agencies and an Israeli military official who shared the photos with The New York Times.
Aid trucks entering Gaza from the crossing were subsequently attacked by Palestinians, some armed, looking for cigarettes hidden inside the vehicles, according to U.N. and Israeli officials.
Andrea de Domenico, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem, confirmed that aid officials “saw cartons filled with UN-branded aid containing cigarettes”. He said smuggled cigarettes had given rise to “new impetus” for organized attacks on aid convoys.
During the war, Israel had almost total control over goods entering Gaza, which distorted the enclave’s economy. Flour prices have plummeted in parts of Gaza as Israel, under intense international pressure to ease hunger, allowed aid agencies to flood the area with flour. Other items that come in less frequently are still rarer and more expensive.
DeDomenico showed The Times footage he shot recently while driving along the road leading from Kerem Shalom to Gaza: Bags filled with flour can be seen scattered on the roadside, and looters appear to be interested in Not interested in this.
“The main reason they come here is to look for cigarettes,” said Manhar Shebal, who runs a Palestinian trucking company in Kerem Shalom that delivers U.N. aid.
Officials said most of the trucks carrying cigarettes appeared to come from Egypt, which rerouted trucks arriving from Egyptian territory via Kerem Shalom after Israel seized the Rafah crossing in early May. Shebal blamed the smuggling operation on Bedouin families with footprints in Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The looting is the product of anarchy that has descended into much of Gaza, as Israel’s war against Hamas enters its tenth month. The Israeli military has targeted Hamas’s governing body and police without establishing any new government to replace them, creating widespread lawlessness.
