New data published last week by the U.N. agency UNOPS shows that most of its aid entering the war-torn Gaza Strip has been looted inside the Palestinian territory. UNOPS provides management services for the world body's own humanitarian operations.
Despite this, condemnation of Israel over the hunger crisis in Gaza has been ramping up, prompting an increasing number of Western governments to declare intentions to recognize a Palestinian state as punishment, and leading some media outlets to totally tune out the role both international humanitarian organizations and Hamas, whose October 2023 mass terror attack in Israel started the nearly two-year-old war, have played in this catastrophe.
"Nobody is able to have nuance in this conflict or hold multiple truths and that’s part of why everybody from journalists to NGOs to U.N. officials, the pro-Palestine people, activists and advocates, parrot the same talking points that there's no aid theft and that everything is Israel’s fault," Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Digital.
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Alkhatib, a Gaza-born American, said that while the U.N. and other NGOs were "playing politics" by ignoring their own failures so as not to jeopardize funding and because they are terrified of Hamas, Israeli leaders were also "exaggerating" claims about Hamas being the only ones to loot the aid. A close observer of events in Gaza, he described a chain of thievery and extreme price hikes perpetrated by civilians and merchants that have all contributed to the misery there.
He added that statements by some Israeli government ministers about cutting off aid to force Gazans out of the territory have not helped either.
"Their statements have become the story under which nothing else will fit… no amount of evidence, no amount of clarification, no amount of nuance is going to come anywhere near to grabbing that much attention," Alkhatib said.
Farhan Aziz Haq, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, confirmed to Fox News Digital that some aid had been stolen but said it was because so few supplies had entered Gaza in recent months that "people facing hunger have resorted to offloading supplies directly from our convoys," he said.
"We understand the frustration, but let’s be clear: this isn’t our system. It’s what happens when aid is squeezed through too few routes after months of deprivation," he claimed, adding "only a steady, reliable flow of aid and commercial supplies can restore people’s belief that aid will arrive and allow for safe, orderly distributions," he claimed.
Information posted on the website of UNOPS, the U.N. Office for Project Services, shows that around 87%, or 1,753 of the 2,013 aid trucks that entered Gaza since May 19 did not reach their final destinations, with the aid being stolen either "peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors."
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The data, which showed that a record 90 trucks carrying some 1,695 tons of aid were looted on May 31 alone, comes as shocking photos of emaciated Palestinian children – some of which were later proven to be children with pre-existing health conditions used as propaganda by Hamas – have gone viral.
The revelations about the U.N.’s faulty aid system also come amid worldwide condemnation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new U.S. and Israel-backed aid distribution mechanism, devised, in part, to prevent aid from falling into Hamas’ hands. The U.N. has refused to cooperate with the GHF. The aid group announced on Sunday that it had delivered nearly 105 million meals to Gazans since it started operations in May.
It also comes in sharp contrast to reports by some media outlets who chose to ignore evidence of Hamas stealing and reselling aid in order to fund its ongoing war – seemingly as a way to suggest that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war or committing "genocide." Israel has emphatically denied both claims.
A recent article in the New York Times even went as far as reporting that there was "no proof" that Hamas had stolen U.N. aid, despite countless documented accounts, including from freed Israeli hostages who reported seeing stockpiles of U.N.-branded products inside Hamas tunnels.
Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that not only did human rights organizations and many media outlets base their faulty reports on information published by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas, they also did not "take the nature of Hamas seriously."
"Hamas is not the most reliable source in the world," he said, adding that "the international media and other sources do not consider the interests of Hamas, or its strategy, and they do not seem to acknowledge that Hamas wants a chaotic situation in the Gaza Strip. Hamas wants there to be many casualties among Palestinian civilians, because it serves their interests."
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"Just to listen to what Hamas leaders have been saying since October 7," Michael continued. "They have promised to repeat October 7 again and again, they have called on the Arab world to join the armed resistance against Israel and on the Arab public to pressure their regimes.
"They have also said publicly, and loudly, that they have no problem sacrificing another 100,000 Palestinian civilians for the sake of the victory," he said.
Yet the GHF has faced scrutiny and blame for the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza amid daily reports by Hamas-backed bodies of civilian deaths at or near their aid distribution points and following chaotic images of people fighting over the food packages or sheltering from gunfire. The new agency has hit back, saying that Hamas, the U.N. and other international aid agencies, are just hoping the initiative fails so they can control all aid operations in Gaza.
On Friday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, together with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, visited southern Gaza to inspect one of GHF’s aid distribution sites.
"Went into Gaza today & observed humanitarian food program by U.S. launched GHF. Hamas hates GHF b/c it gets food to ppl w/o it being looted by Hamas. Over 100 MILLION meals served in 2 months," Huckabee wrote in a post on X.
David Makovsky, director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said blame for the crisis should not be placed on one party but that "by bringing the U.N.’s own records to bear we can level-set the conversation.
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"There is a whole debate about GHF, which will not be settled today," he noted. "Yet, in a humanitarian emergency crisis, feeding people should take absolute top priority and I think it is incumbent for the U.N. and GHF to work together to feed people.
"I hope that by bringing in lots of food into Gaza you can help innocent suffering people and also dramatically bring down black market rates exploited by Hamas which they use to control their people," said Makovsky.
