A new problem is complicating humanitarian aid convoys delivering supplies to hungry Gazans: attacks by organized mobs seeking not the flour and medicine inside the trucks, but the cigarettes in the cargo.
In the tightly blockaded Gaza, cigarettes have become increasingly scarce, and now generally sell for $25 to $30 each. U.N. and Israeli officials say the coordinated attacks by groups seeking to sell smuggled cigarettes for profit pose a formidable obstacle to bringing desperately needed aid to southern Gaza.
Israeli authorities meticulously scan everything that enters and leaves Gaza through Israeli-run checkpoints. But the cigarettes have been able to slip through aid trucks for weeks, mainly through the Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza.
To evade Israeli inspections, smugglers in Egypt hide the animals in bags containing flour donated by the United Nations, diapers and even a watermelon, according to aid groups and an Israeli soldier who shared photos with The New York Times.
Aid trucks leaving the Gaza crossing were then attacked by groups of Palestinians, some armed and searching for cigarettes hidden inside, UN and Israeli officials said.
Andrea De Domenico, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem, confirmed that aid workers had seen “boxes of UN-branded items with cigarettes inside.” He said the smuggled cigarettes had created “a new dynamic” of organized attacks on aid convoys.
Israel’s near-total control over goods entering Gaza during the war has distorted the enclave’s economy. The price of flour has fallen in parts of Gaza as Israel, under intense international pressure to alleviate hunger, has allowed aid agencies to pump in large quantities. Other commodities, which have entered less frequently, remain rarer and more expensive.
Mr. De Domenico showed The Times footage he had recently taken while driving along the road leading from Kerem Shalom to Gaza: Full sacks of flour lie by the side of the road, seemingly of no interest to the looters.
“Their main purpose here was to look for the cigarettes,” said Manhal Shaibar, who runs a Palestinian trucking company in Kerem Shalom that transports UN aid.
Officials said most of the trucks carrying cigarettes appeared to be coming from Egypt, which rerouted trucks coming from Egyptian territory through Kerem Shalom after Israel captured the Rafah crossing in early May. Mr. Shaibar attributed the smuggling operation to Bedouin families with a footprint in both Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai.
The looting is a product of the anarchy that has gripped much of Gaza as Israel’s war against Hamas enters its 10th month. Israeli forces have attacked Hamas’s government apparatus and police without installing a new government in their place, creating widespread lawlessness.
