Palestinian lives lost in the pursuit of food aid in Gaza, in photos
International pressure for Israel to let in more aid has increased the number of aid trucks entering Gaza, but almost none of it reaches U.N. warehouses for distribution. Instead, nearly all the trucks are stripped of their cargo by crowds that overwhelm them. The crowds are a mix of Palestinians desperate for food and gangs armed with knives, axes or guns who loot the goods to then hoard or sell.
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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
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Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Hunger-striking women demand Israel return the body of Palestinian activist killed in settler clash
UMM AL-KHAIR, West Bank — Nearly two dozen Bedouin women, enrobed in black, sat on the floor of a modest hut that baked under the desert sun of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The room was quiet, the women still. The women are on a hunger strike to call for Israeli authorities to release the body of a beloved community leader killed during a clash with a Jewish settler last week. They say they will continue until the man's remains are returned for burial in his hometown of Umm al-Khair. Witnesses said Awdah Al Hathaleen was shot and killed by a radical Israeli settler during a confrontation caught on video. Israeli authorities said they would only return the body if the family agrees to certain conditions that would 'prevent public disorder.' The villagers say those include limiting attendance for a funeral that would normally draw hundreds and burying him at night in a nearby city. 'We want him to be buried here in Umm al-Khair and have a respectable funeral without any conditions. What did we do to deserve this treatment? We did nothing,' said his mother, Khadra Hathaleen, 65, who is among the dozens of women, aged 15-70, from the village who are on strike. The hunger strike, in its sixth day Tuesday, marks a rare public protest by a group of Bedouin women accustomed to mourning in private. Their move reflects their anger over Awdah's death as well as what they perceive as Israel's attempt to dictate unreasonable conditions that violate their customs, beliefs, and right to the land beneath them. But beyond that, they say they have been forced to speak up after repeated settler attacks and Israeli raids have targeted their husbands, sons and fathers. Adding to their outrage, the settler suspected in the shooting, Yinon Levi, was quickly released by an Israeli court from his house arrest. The plight of Palestinians in this area of the West Bank, known as Masafer Yatta, was featured in 'No Other Land,' an Oscar-winning documentary about settler violence and life under Israeli military rule. Al Hathaleen, a political activist and an English teacher, was a contributor to the film and close friend of its Palestinian co-directors. It documents life in a region where Jewish residents are building new settlements and expanding old ones on hilltops ringing Palestinian villages — all while Israeli military bulldozers arrive frequently to demolish Palestinian homes they say amount to illegal construction. Palestinians say its nearly impossible to secure Israeli permits to build on their lands. Four Palestinians have been killed by settlers this year, according to UN data. Witnesses said that the confrontation that led to Al Hathaleen's death began after settler excavators began digging on village land. Some Palestinians threw stones after one excavator injured a young man from the village, witnesses said. The Israeli military said that during the confrontation Palestinians hurled rocks at an Israeli civilian, who opened fire toward the 'terrorists.' Levi, a well known settler who is under international sanctions for violence toward Palestinians, was briefly arrested last week. He was quickly freed from house arrest, with a judge ruling there was no proof that Levi fired the fatal bullets. Video shot by a Palestinian witness showed Levi firing a gun twice and tussling with a group of unarmed Palestinians. In the footage, Levi accused the group of throwing rocks at him. It did not show where his shots landed. But residents said that he fired the bullet that hit Al Hathaleen in the chest, and that no one else in the encounter was armed. Israeli military and police did not respond to requests for comment on who else could have fired the fatal shot. Levi could not be reached for comment; multiple calls to his phone went unanswered. Since the killing, Israeli forces returned to the village and arrested 18 men. Villagers said at least one remains in jail — the hunger strikers are also demanding his release. On Monday, a week after Al Hathaleen was killed, Levi was back within eyesight of the village, the sound of his excavators pummeling the ground audible from the hut where the hunger-striking women sat. To Sara Hathaleen, it was a reminder of the village's vulnerability. 'They come at 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock in the morning,' said the 39-year-old, who is Al Hathaleen's sister-in-law. 'It's like a horror, because we hear their cars and we know that they are coming for us. We don't know who will be next, or who they will take next.' Most of Umm al-Khair's residents are related — some closely, some distantly — and nearly all share the surname Hathaleen. Al Hathaleen and his wife use an alternate spelling. Sara Hathaleen said her own husband, Aziz, was detained by Israel after the killing and released Tuesday. 'We want to have a voice and to take part,' she said. 'The men are hurt by settlers or taken by the army, put in prison, and are not available.' Three of the women on strike — Al Hathaleen's mother, sister and widow — have needed medical attention, according to Sara Hathaleen. Israeli military and police did not respond to requests for comment on the strike. Myassar Hathaleen, 32, sat in the fasting hut with the other women. Since she stopped eating, her breast milk has dried up and she wakes at night to her infant crying to be breastfed. Her brother, Hamid, was arrested the day Al Hathaleen was killed and he has not yet been released. 'We're striking because the world needs to wake up,' said Myassar. 'We don't want to make any problems. We just want to live in justice, and in silence.' Hanady Al Hathaleen, 24, said that she will settle for nothing less than a proper burial for her husband in his hometown. 'Awdah was killed here because he was resistant, in his own way,' she said. 'He was killed here and he must be buried here. The land of Umm al-Khair drinks from his blood.' Frankel writes for the Associated Press.
Washington Post
3 hours ago
- Washington Post
Gaza aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds and armed gangs
Truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza say their work has become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory's Hamas rulers. Crowds of hungry people routinely rip aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. Some trucks are hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza's markets for exorbitant prices . Israeli troops often shoot into the chaos, they said.
Associated Press
3 hours ago
- Associated Press
Gaza aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds and armed gangs
Truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza say their work has become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory's Hamas rulers. Crowds of hungry people routinely rip aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. Some trucks are hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza's markets for exorbitant prices. Israeli troops often shoot into the chaos, they said. Drivers have been killed in the mayhem. Since March, when Israel ended a ceasefire in its war with Hamas and halted all imports, the situation has grown increasingly dire in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians. International experts are now warning of a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in Gaza. Under heavy international pressure, Israel last week announced measures to let more aid into Gaza. Though aid groups say it's still not enough, getting even that amount from the border crossings to the people who need it is difficult and extremely dangerous, the drivers said. Driving aid trucks can be deadly Thousands of people packed around the road Monday as two trucks entered southern Gaza, AP video showed. Young men overwhelmed the trucks, standing on the cabs' roofs, dangling from the sides and clambering over each other onto the truck beds to grab boxes even as the trucks slowly kept driving. 'Some of my drivers are scared to go transfer aid because they're concerned about how they'll untangle themselves from large crowds of people,' said Abu Khaled Selim, vice president of the Special Transport Association, a nonprofit group that works with private transportation companies across the Gaza Strip and advocates for truck drivers' rights. Selim said his nephew, Ashraf Selim, a father of eight, was killed July 29 by a stray bullet when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds climbing onto the aid truck he was driving. Shifa Hospital officials said they received his body with an apparent gunshot to the head. The Israeli military said it was unaware of the incident and that 'as a rule' it does not carry out deliberate attacks on aid trucks. Earlier in the war, aid deliveries were safer because, with more food getting into Gaza, the population was less desperate. Hamas-run police had been seen securing convoys and went after suspected looters and merchants who resold aid at exorbitant prices, Now, 'with the situation unsecured, everything is permissible,' said Selim, who appealed for protection so the aid trucks could reach warehouses. The U.N. does not accept protection from Israeli forces, saying it would violate its rules of neutrality, and said that given the urgent need for aid it would accept that hungry people were going to grab food off the back of the trucks as long as they weren't violent. Flooding Gaza with renewed aid would ease the desperation and make things safer for the drivers, said Juliette Touma, communications director at UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. The danger for drivers is growing Ali al-Derbashi, 22, was an aid truck driver for more than a year and a half, but he quit after his last trip three weeks ago because of the increasing danger, he said. Some people taking aid off the trucks are now carrying cleavers, knives and axes, he said. He was once ambushed and forcibly redirected to an area designated by Israel as a conflict zone in its war against Hamas. There everything was stolen, including his truck's fuel and batteries, and his tires were shot out, he said. He was beaten and his phone was stolen. 'We put our lives in danger for this. We leave our families for two or three days every time. And we don't even have water or food ourselves,' he said. In addition to the danger, the drivers faced humiliation from Israeli forces, he said, who put them through 'prolonged searches, unclear instructions, and hours of waiting.' The war began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to the latest figures by Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The threats come from everywhere Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, said the danger for the drivers comes from everywhere. He accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields. The Israeli military did not comment on the accusation. In recent days, men linked to a violent Gaza clan fired at drivers, injuring one, and looted a convoy of 14 trucks, he said. They later looted a convoy of 10 trucks. Hossni al-Sharafi, who runs a trucking company and was an aid driver himself, said he is only allowed to use drivers who have no political affiliation and have been approved by Israel to transport aid from crossings. Al-Sharafi said he was detained by Israeli forces for more than 10 days last year while transporting aid from the southern Kerem Shalom crossing and interrogated about where the truck was headed and how the aid was being distributed. Israeli officials did not comment on the accusations. Some drivers spoke of being shot at repeatedly by armed gangs. Others said their trucks were routinely picked clean — even of the wooden pallets— by waves of desperate people, many of whom were fighting each other for the food, while Israeli troops were shooting. Hungry families who miss out on the aid throw stones at the trucks in anger. Anas Rabea said the moment he pulled out of the Zikkim crossing last week his aid truck was overwhelmed by a crowd. 'Our instructions are to stop, because we don't want to run anyone over,' he said. 'It's crazy. You have people climbing all over the cargo, over the windows. It's like you're blind, you can't see out.' After the crowd had stripped everything, he drove another few hundred meters and was stopped by an armed gang that threatened to shoot him. They searched the truck and took a bag of flour he had saved for himself, he said. 'Every time we go out, we get robbed,' he said. 'It's getting worse day by day.' ——- Associated Press writers Julia Frankel contributed to this report from Jerusalem and Sally Abou Aljoud from Beirut. Mariam Dagga contributed from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip.
