Screenshot from a video showing Israelis blocking aid trucks and throwing aid packages on the ground. Image source: Can Tokum/Reuters
A humanitarian aid shipment bound for Gaza was intercepted and looted by Israelis who opposed sending aid to Palestinians living in the blockaded enclave.
A video clip from the Tarqumiya checkpoint near Hebron in the West Bank, through which the convoy passed, shows at least two looted trucks, with bags and boxes of food scattered on the road.
Other pictures showed people blocking the path of aid trucks, throwing aid packages on the ground and trampling on boxes.
It is not known whether the aid came from Jordan or from the Palestinian self-rule government.
The “Regavim” movement, which opposes the transfer of aid to Gaza, said: “We will not be a silver platter for the Palestinian self-rule government.”
He added: “What is unfathomable to the mind and heart is that, on the day of remembrance of soldiers who fell in Israel’s battles and victims of hostilities, the Israeli government opens a supply route from the Palestinian self-rule government in Hebron to Hamas terrorists in Gaza.”
Regavim and activists from another group, Tsav 9, participated in disrupting the procession.
The Israeli police said that they had since opened an investigation and arrested a number of “activists” due to the interception operation.
The United States escalated the incident to the Israeli government.
US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said at a press conference: “We firmly believe that aid cannot and should not be interfered with.”
He added: “We have raised this incident with the government of Israel and hope that it will take appropriate action.”
The ministry previously condemned several other attacks on aid convoys by Israeli activists and called on Israel to hold the alleged perpetrators accountable.
Palestinians caught in the middle of the war between Israel and Hamas are struggling to obtain enough food and water to survive. Northern Gaza is now in the midst of a “massive famine,” according to the World Food Programme.
Half of Gaza’s population is expected to face catastrophic hunger by mid-July, and not all of the 2.2 million people will be able to meet their food needs, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
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