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.
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.