A group of men in southern Gaza intercepted trucks carrying aid from a newly introduced floating pier Saturday, seizing food boxes in a dramatic show of desperation.
CNN video showed the men running alongside the trucks and jumping on the back of the vehicles while they were still moving, reaching for the boxes of aid secured beneath tarps. When the trucks stopped, large groups formed along the roadside, with people clamoring aboard the vehicles to grab supplies.
Ramadan Al-Aklok, a local who took a box of high-energy biscuits from a truck, said, “They brought these,” pointing to the box, “as aid to the people. The trucks were moving, and men jumped on them because of the widespread hunger.”
One of the men interviewed by CNN in the area expressed deep skepticism about the intentions behind the floating pier, which was built by the US military. He questioned whether the aid was genuinely meant to assist the Palestinian people or had “ulterior motives.”
“They say it’s for aid, but people are apprehensive. Is this aid or something else? We know that the US has never supported the Palestinian cause, so it’s implausible that it’s giving us aid without something in return,” Mounir Ayad, a Gaza resident, told CNN.
This sentiment was echoed by others in the area, who questioned why the aid could not be transported through existing land crossings, which they believe would effectively end the starvation in Gaza if opened.
Numerous United Nations agencies have warned that aid from the pier will not be sufficient to address a spiraling hunger crisis while Israel still tightly restricts more efficient deliveries via land crossing.
