Desk Reports :
Eyewitness Shocker: Historian Claims Israeli Forces Aided Looters Attacking Gaza Aid Convoys
Honestly, sometimes the most shocking revelations come from the people who actually got inside. And, to be frank, getting a historian like Jean-Pierre Filiu into Gaza was a near miracle. Filiu, a super-respected professor of Middle East studies over at France’s prestigious Sciences Po university, managed to spend over a month in the territory right around the New Year. He was hosted by a humanitarian group in that packed, southern coastal area, al-Mawasi. Here’s the bombshell, though: He came out with what he calls “utterly convincing” evidence that Israel actually supported looters who were attacking desperately needed aid convoys during the conflict. You have to understand the context. Israel has basically sealed Gaza off from international media and independent observers. But somehow, Filiu got past the strict Israeli vetting. He eventually slipped out shortly after that brief second ceasefire in January collapsed.
His eyewitness account, published first in French back in May and now in English this month, is frankly heartbreaking. In the book, Filiu describes how the Israeli military would hit the security personnel—the very people meant to be protecting the food and supplies. This, he argues, allowed looters to swoop in and grab massive amounts of goods destined for Palestinians facing a real risk of famine. I mean, international agencies were sounding the alarm about starvation in parts of Gaza at the time. It makes a terrible kind of sense. UN agencies were already telling The Guardian back then that law and order was basically non-existent. Why? Because Israel had started targeting the police officers who typically guarded these aid convoys. Israel claims that because Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, any police officer there is inherently part of the militant group.
Filiu recounts one particularly telling incident that happened super close to where he was staying in al-Mawasi—that supposed “humanitarian zone” overflowing with hundreds of thousands of displaced people. The UN, after weeks of convoys being robbed by local criminals, militias, and just desperate regular folks, decided to try a new route, hoping to finally get some supplies through. The plan: Sixty-six trucks loaded with flour and hygiene kits left the Israeli Kerem Shalom checkpoint, heading west, then north up the main coastal road. Hamas, surprisingly, was determined to ensure its security, even recruiting powerful local families to provide armed guards. But as Filiu watched from just a few hundred metres away, everything went sideways. “It was one night and I was … a few hundred metres away,” he writes. “And it was very clear that Israeli quadcopters were supporting the looters in attacking the local security [teams].” Imagine that: a military drone providing air cover for criminals. He writes that the Israeli military killed “two local notables as they sat in their car, armed and ready to protect the convoy.” Twenty trucks were looted. The UN considered losing only one-third of the convoy a relative win, which tells you how bad it had been before!
Filiu believes the rationale behind this alleged support for looters was chillingly strategic. It was all about discrediting both Hamas and the UN at the time. Even worse, he suggests it was designed to empower Israel’s own clients—the looters—allowing them to either redistribute the aid to build their own local support networks or resell it for cash. This, he argues, would make them less dependent on direct Israeli financial support. A cynical, long-game play, if true. Naturally, Israeli officials vehemently deny this. A military spokesperson stated that in the incident Filiu described, an Israeli Air Force aircraft “conducted a precise strike on a vehicle with armed terrorists inside” who were allegedly planning to “divert humanitarian aid into Hamas storage units.” They insisted the strike was done precisely to avoid hitting the aid and claimed they’re doing everything possible to mitigate harm to civilians and facilitate aid transfer. But here’s the kicker: Filiu’s accusations aren’t isolated. An internal United Nations memo at the time reportedly described Israel’s attitude toward certain looting gangs as “passive, if not active benevolence.” Filiu even accuses Israeli forces of bombing a new alternative route the World Food Programme was trying to set up to avoid the looting hotspots. “It was a deliberate attempt to put it out of action,” he told The Guardian.
While Israel, including PM Benjamin Netanyahu himself, has rejected claims of deliberately obstructing aid, Netanyahu did admit to assisting the Popular Forces, an anti-Hamas militia that, worryingly, included many looters among its recruits. For their part, Israel constantly accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which Hamas denies. Filiu, who has been visiting Gaza for decades, admitted he was utterly shocked by the devastation. The war, which began with the horrific Hamas raid into Israel in October 2023 (where about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered and 250 taken hostage), has “erased, annihilated” everything that stood before. Israel’s massive ensuing offensive has killed nearly 70,000 people, mostly civilians, and turned much of the territory to literal rubble. The historian closed with a stark warning. Any successful counterinsurgency has to balance military might with winning “hearts and minds.” But in Gaza, Israel “didn’t even pretend to do that.” What’s particularly tragic is that Hamas is probably most unpopular in Gaza itself because the residents know the harsh reality of its Islamist rule. He views the conflict as having enormous global consequences. “I’ve always been convinced that it’s a universal tragedy,” Filiu stressed. “It’s not one more Middle Eastern conflict. It’s a laboratory of a post-UN world, of a post-Geneva convention world, of a post-declaration of human rights world, and this world is very scary because it’s not even rational. It’s just ferocious.
