Profit Bonanza From Smuggled Cigarettes Into Gaza

"The looting has become quite profound [last Tuesday, three-quarters of the goods on board trucks entering from the crossing were stolen]."

"Meaningful decisions now have to be taken about what we will do for civil order in Gaza and who will take care of delivering that."

 Georgios Petropoulos, head, UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Gaza

 

"This is largely due to the fact that international organizations have not taken sufficient steps to improve their distribution capacity."

"[The UN – which is the main supplier of aid in Gaza – has insufficient numbers of trucks, and needs] to increase manpower, to extend working hours, to increase storage [and take other] logistical and organizational steps."

COGAT spokesman Shimon Freedman

 

"[Aid officials have] seen cartons of U.N.-branded assistance with cigarettes inside."

"They [the gangs] go directly into the pallet where the cigarettes are]."

Andrea De Domenico, U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jerusalem

Palestinians loot a truck with humanitarian aid near the Rafah border crossing in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)

Humanitarian aid convoys scheduled to deliver relief to Palestinians in Gaza are coming under more frequent attacks led by organized crowds of Palestinians looking for cigarette they know that have been smuggled into the humanitarian shipments. Cigarettes in Gaza have become scarce, those that are available on the market sell for between $25 and $30 for each cigarette. Attacks by groups intent on looting the humanitarian aid in pursuit of the cigarettes have posed a real obstacle to delivering aid to southern Gaza.

Everything that goes in and out of Gaza is closely scanned by Israeli authorities in their search for smuggled weapons that will reach Hamas' hands. Despite which, cigarettes slip through with the cargo into southern Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Israeli hands. Mostly Egyptian smugglers have taken to to placing cigarettes in sacks of flour donated by the U.N., in diapers and some were even found in a watermelon, aid agencies and an Israeli military official reported.

The economy in Gaza has been turned inside out since control of goods entering the enclave are closely monitored by Israel. Under intense international pressure, Israel has allowed aid agencies to send large amounts of flour, steeply dropping the price of flour on the Gaza marketplace. Most trucks carrying cigarettes seem to emanate from Egypt which had re-routed the trucks arriving from Egyptian territory through Kerem Shalom once Israel captured the Rafah border crossing.

Palestinian  trucking company owner Manhal Shaibar, carrying U.N. aid, attributed smuggling of cigarettes to Bedouin families in both Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai. Although southern Gaza's state of deprivation is intense, contents of over 1,000 aid trucks have been left for weeks at the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom crossing. Aid agencies hesitate to send trucks to collect and distribute goods, fearing attacks.

 

Commercial food trucks are seen near a checkpoint near Hebron, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank May 28, 2024. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma/File Photo

 

Israel has paved new roads to make it easier to ensure U.N. agencies can collect the goods, but those same aid officials claim Israel could be more helpful by allowing them to expand use of other roads and crossings. Private businesses are willing to pay hundreds or thousands in protection money to guards or to the organized gangs to protect their trucks. The convoys carrying U.N. aid are viewed as an easier target by the criminal gangs. They are linked to Hamas which takes a significant cut of the profits they realize from their plundering

According to both U.N. and Israeli officials, smugglers are closely coordinated with organized groups within the territory where aid trucks have been blocked and operatives with light arms, clubs and improvised roadblocks are imperilling the delivery of humanitarian goods. They've noted that the looters appear to know where exactly where the cigarettes are to be found hidden within the trucks.

A cigarette seller in Gaza City spoke anonymously fearing retribution, explaining that Hamas forces remained in the area, but not as police, just as "mafias". Prices, he said, could be as much as $40 for each cigarette for more popular brands. That, despite being impoverished after months of war, desperate smokers were willing to pay for cigarettes, despite their need for food for their families.

 

Palestinians climb onto trucks to grab aid that was delivered into Gaza through a U.S.-built pier, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, as seen from the central Gaza Strip.