“Fifteen World Food Programme trucks were looted late last night in southern Gaza, while en route to WFP-supported bakeries,” the UN agency said. “These trucks were transporting critical food supplies for hungry populations waiting anxiously for assistance.”

The development is a blow to continuing efforts to help Gaza’s most vulnerable people after Israel allowed a limited number of aid trucks into Gaza earlier this week, following an 11-week total blockade.

Today, Gazans face “hunger, desperation and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming”, WFP said, noting that the uncertainty “is contributing to rising insecurity”.

“We need support from the Israeli authorities to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster, more consistently and transported along safer routes, as was done during the ceasefire,” it insisted.

Critical first step

The incident comes a day after about 90 trucks loaded with food, nutrition supplies, medicines and other critical stocks finally started to move from Kerem Shalom crossing point in southern Gaza deeper into the enclave.

Footage released by WFP showed workers carrying sacks of flour into an empty warehouse and making dough ready for baking. In subsequent online posts, the UN agency said that a handful of bakeries were once again baking bread after receiving “limited supplies” overnight.

But the UN agency insisted: “Bread alone is not enough for people to survive.”

“This is a critical first step - but assistance must be scaled up,” said WFP Deputy Country Director Vladmir Jovcev. “More essential food is needed to push back the risk of famine.”

In an appeal for far more aid, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA said that what had been allowed in was “nowhere near sufficient” to meet needs of Gaza’s 2.1 million people.

“Other supplies as basic as fresh food, hygiene items, water purification agents, and fuel to power hospitals have not been let in for over 80 days,” OCHA noted.

More than 500 pallets loaded with nutrition supplies – nearly 20 truckloads – reached UNICEF’s warehouse in Deir al Balah on Thursday, according to OCHA.

These supplies included ready-to-use therapeutic food and lipid-based nutritional supplements which were then repackaged into smaller loads for delivery to people via dozens of distribution points.

More to come on this developing story...