Evidence of Israel Supporting Mobs to Loot Humanitarian Shipments

TEHRAN (Defapress) - Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at the prestigious French university Sciences Po, entered Gaza in December; he was hosted there by an international humanitarian organisation in the southern coastal area of Al-Mawasi.

This was at a time when the Zionist regime had banned international media and independent observers from entering Gaza, but Filiu managed to pass through the strict controls. This Middle East studies professor left Gaza shortly after the second short-term ceasefire in January. However, his eyewitness account, titled as a historian in Gaza, was published in French in May and in English this month.

In his book, Filiu describes the Israeli army's attacks on the security forces protecting aid convoys in this manner. These attacks allowed looters to seize massive amounts of food and other vital data-x-items that had been sent for needy Palestinians. At the time, according to reports from international humanitarian organisations, parts of Gaza were on the brink of famine.

On the other hand, UN agencies had at the time informed the Guardian newspaper that since Israel began targeting the police forces - whose duty was to protect aid convoys - law and order in Gaza had collapsed. Furthermore, Israel considered the Gaza police, which has been under Hamas administration since 2007, as part of this armed Islamist organisation.

In his book, Filiu describes an incident that, he says, occurred near his residence in Al-Mawasi, an area known as a "humanitarian zone" where hundreds of thousands of displaced people from destroyed homes had gathered. After repeated attacks on convoys by local criminals and militants, the UN decided to test a new route to perhaps prevent looting.

According to this Middle East studies professor, "In one case of looting aid convoys to Gaza, I witnessed 66 trucks carrying flour and hygiene packages move from the Kerem Shalom crossing on the Egyptian border and then head north on the main coastal road. At this time, Hamas took responsibility for the convoy's security and employed powerful local families to provide armed guards, but the convoy was quickly attacked."

Filiu wrote in his book: "That night I was a few hundred meters away and it was completely clear that Israeli quadcopter drones played a role in the looters' attack on the local security teams." This Middle East studies professor added that the Israeli army "killed two local individuals who were seated in a vehicle ready to protect the convoy," after which 20 trucks were looted; although the UN assessed the loss of one-third of the convoy compared to the complete looting of previous loads as a relative improvement.

This Middle East studies professor states in his book: "Israel's logic at that time was to discredit Hamas and the UN and allow its clients (the looters) to either distribute the aid to expand their own support networks or, by selling it, obtain money and not be solely dependent on Israeli financial support."

Of course, officials of the Zionist regime denied this accusation. In this regard, an army spokesperson said that in the incident Filiu described, an Israeli Air Force plane "precisely targeted a vehicle in which armed terrorists were present and intended to transfer humanitarian aid to Hamas warehouses and forcibly seize a humanitarian aid truck."

The spokesperson for the Zionist regime's army added in completing his statements: "The attack was carried out to target the terrorists while preventing damage to the aid. The 'Israeli' army continues to operate against the terrorist organisation Hamas and does everything to reduce harm to innocent civilians. Furthermore, the 'Israeli' army will also act in accordance with international law to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza."

But the very important point here is that Filiu's accusations reflect the statements of some aid officials at the time. Furthermore, a published internal UN memo had accused "Israel" of "passive tolerance, if not active support" for some gangs responsible for looting in Gaza.

This Middle East studies professor also accused Israeli forces of attacking a new route that international aid organisations had recently opened to bypass high-risk looting points. Accordingly, Filiu told the Guardian: "The World Food Programme was trying to establish an alternative route to the coastal road, but Israel bombed the middle of the road… This was a deliberate attempt to disable it."

Another important and notable issue is that the Zionist regime's army, which during the war imposed severe restrictions or even a complete blockade on the entry of aid into Gaza, denied accusations of deliberate obstruction or support for looters. However, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, had admitted that Israel had assisted popular forces, an anti-Hamas militia with many looters among its members.

On the other hand, Filiu, who has been traveling to Gaza for decades, said he was shocked that due to the war in this land, "everything that existed before" has been "erased and destroyed"; a war that began with the Al-Aqsa Storm Operation against the Zionist regime in October 2023. During that operation, about 1,200 people were killed, and 250 were captured. But the retaliatory attack by the Israeli regime's army on the Gaza Strip has martyred approximately 70,000 people, mostly civilians, and turned almost the entire Gaza Strip into ruins.

And finally, this historian said that the Gaza conflict could have enormous consequences: "I have always believed that this is a global tragedy. This is not just another conflict in the Middle East. This is a laboratory for a world after the UN, after the Geneva Conventions, and after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and this world is very frightening, because it is not even rational."