Small groups of Israeli protesters have attacked a number of aid trucks headed to Gaza from the West Bank and Israel in recent weeks, complicating efforts by the international community to help more than two million Palestinians stuck inside the strip survive the continuing conflict.
Scores of Israelis have organized protests against the delivery of humanitarian aid into the strip throughout the war, including at a southern border crossing with Israel where trucks were entering Gaza. But more recent protests have turned violent, with instances of truck drivers getting attacked.
The incidents show how resentment has built inside some Israeli communities—especially the more religious settler communities in the occupied West Bank—toward Israeli authorities for allowing aid deliveries into the strip for Palestinian civilians, when some 128 Israeli hostages taken on Oct. 7 remain in the enclave, held by Hamas and other militant groups. Many who are against the aid say no help should be delivered until the hostages are released.
The Israeli military said it received a report Thursday night that dozens of Israeli citizens had attacked an Israeli driver who was wounded and whose truck was set on fire at the Kochav HaShachar junction in the West Bank. It said that three military officers and soldiers were then injured as the military intervened.
In an incident near the Tarqumiyah checkpoint in the West Bank on Monday, protesters unloaded boxes of aid from a truck and threw them on the ground, according to footage by Reuters. Around 70 Palestinian trucks headed toward Gaza were targeted, according to the Hebron Food Trade Association.
One of the Israeli groups involved in blocking aid trucks is Tzav 9, which has advertised protests via WhatsApp groups, word-of-mouth and Facebook, according to participant Michael Raskas. The Israeli commodities consultant said the rationale behind the demonstrations is the protesters’ belief that Hamas is getting hold of incoming aid.
“To provide aid to our cruel, barbaric enemy in the middle of a war is outrageous. No one is doing anything for our hostages,” he said.
Raskas said demonstrators who have shown up recently come from across the political spectrum and include Israeli settlers. But he said the group’s demonstrations have been peaceful and have only delayed trucks for a few hours at a time.
Israeli authorities have said aid and fuel supplied to Gaza has fallen into Hamas’ hands, while the United Nations aid officials say the goods go to Palestinian civilians. The U.S. has said it has seen no evidence to support Israeli claims that aid goes to Hamas.
European Union foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, called this week on Israeli authorities to stop the assaults and hold those responsible to account. “I’m outraged by the repeated & still unchecked attacks perpetrated by Israeli extremists on aid convoys on their way to Gaza, including from Jordan,” he posted on X. “Hundreds of thousands of civilians are starving.”
The attacks come as Israeli authorities have severely curtailed humanitarian aid and fuel going into Gaza through the southern border town of Rafah, at the same time the Israeli military has begun to send in its tanks and ground troops. Israel says Rafah is the last stronghold for Hamas and that hostages are being held there.
Only a few hundred thousand liters of fuel have been allowed to enter the Kerem Shalom crossing that borders Israel in the past two weeks, falling short of the roughly 200,000 liters that the United Nations says it needs each day to keep minimal operations afloat. The Rafah border crossing has remained closed after the Israeli military took over the Gaza side last week.
The aid bottleneck has put pressure on the U.S. government to help deliver aid via a temporary pier built by the U.S. military off the coast of Gaza. The Israeli navy is involved in the initiative, although the World Food Program is responsible for figuring out how to get the aid from the site to warehouses and distribution centers in the strip.
On Friday morning, trucks carrying the first shipment of aid from the pier entered the strip, according to the U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East.
Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that the plan is to start with 25 trucks a day and that the aid would be donated by several countries and humanitarian organizations.
Sonali Korde, Assistant to the Administrator of USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, said Thursday that the first shipments through the pier would include food bars for 11,000 people, therapeutics for children suffering from severe malnutrition and hygiene kits for 30,000 people.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, most of them civilians, Palestinian officials have said, without specifying how many were combatants. Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7 killed some 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
The Israeli police didn’t respond to requests for comment about the attacks by protesters on aid convoys.
Hebron Food Trade Association head Waseem Al-Jabari said in a Reuters video interview that in the Tarqumiyah crossing incident, Israeli settlers attacked the trucks as they were being unloaded. He said Israeli soldiers standing nearby didn’t intervene. The protesters damaged around 15 trucks, causing about $2 million worth of damage, according to West Bank-based Haulier’s Union.
“Merchants are now refusing to sell to Gaza, drivers now refuse carrying products to Gaza, out of fear,” Adel Amer, a union member, told Reuters.