03:26 – Source: CNN
Watch CNN's investigation into a UN aid truck struck by Israeli forces
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Israeli forces fired on a United Nations convoy carrying vital food supplies in central Gaza on Feb. 5, eventually blocking the trucks from moving to the northern part of the territory, where Palestinians are on the brink of famine, documents show , which were shared exclusively by the Israeli army. Own analysis by UN and CNN.
CNN has seen correspondence between the United Nations and the Israeli military showing that the convoy's route was agreed upon by both parties before the attack. According to an internal incident report from UNRWA, the main U.N. aid agency in Gaza, also seen by CNN, the truck was one of 10 in a convoy stationary at an IDF holding point when it came under fire.
No one in the convoy was injured, but much of its contents – mainly wheat flour, much needed for baking bread – were destroyed. Tracking the attack offers a glimpse into the major challenges facing humanitarian efforts in providing aid to the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip – nearly 85% of whom are internally displaced – while Israel is almost closing the Gaza Strip bombed for five months.
“A convoy with food on its way to the northern parts of the Gaza Strip. This convoy was hit on its way to the so-called middle areas. One of the trucks carrying supplies was hit by Israeli naval fire,” UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma told CNN.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not responded to CNN's repeated requests for comment on the attack. The IDF said on February 5 that it was investigating the incident.
It is one of several incidents in which aid convoys and warehouses containing aid supplies have been hit since the start of the war.
Israel began bombing and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack that killed at least 1,200 people and took more than 250 others hostage. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 29,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
After the strike on February 5, UNRWA decided to stop sending convoys to the northern Gaza Strip. On January 23, the organization was last able to deliver food north of Wadi Gaza – a strip of wetlands that bisects the enclave. The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people still live in the northern Gaza Strip and receive very little aid. According to the United Nations, 16.2% of children there have already been diagnosed with acute malnutrition that is above the critical threshold.
The convoy, consisting of ten relief trucks and two armored vehicles marked with UN insignia, began its journey in the early hours of February 5. UNRWA said the trips would be carried out early in the day to prevent the contents of trucks along the route from being raided by those desperate for food.
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The convoy started south of Gaza and traveled along Al Rashid Road, which follows the coastal edge of the Strip. The road has been the main route approved by the Israeli military for humanitarian convoys and evacuations since January.
According to UNRWA's internal incident report, the convoy reached a designated IDF stopping point on Al Rashid Road at 4:15 a.m., where the trucks stood idle for over an hour. At 5:35 a.m., Marine gunfire was heard and the truck was hit, the report said.
The agency said it had coordinated in advance with the Israeli military and agreed on the route before aid deliveries began – as always.
Email correspondence between UNRWA and COGAT, the Israeli military agency that monitors activities in the Palestinian territories and oversees humanitarian aid, also shows an agreement for the convoy to take Al Rashid Road.
“We inform the Israeli army of the coordinates of the convoys and the route of this convoy,” Touma said. “Only when the Israeli army gives us the okay, the green light, will UNRWA act. Without this coordination we cannot move forward.”
She said the purpose of this coordination, called the deconfliction process, is to ensure that aid convoys are not hit.
“Gaza has very quickly become one of the most dangerous places to work as an aid worker,” Touma said. “The work environment is extremely complex. Our teams are often forced to provide humanitarian assistance under fire.”
Thomas White/UNRWA on X
A low-bed truck carrying food, part of a UNRWA aid convoy, hit by Israeli fire on February 5 while en route to the northern Gaza Strip.
UNRWA director Tom White said the convoy was hit by Israeli navy gunfire shared two photos on According to CNN's geolocation of the images, the hole was in the side of the truck facing the sea, suggesting it had been hit by a munition fired from that direction.
CNN reviewed satellite images taken two hours after the incident that show three Israeli missile boats a few kilometers off the coast. These boats have been part of a regular operation since the start of the war that, according to the IDF, aims to monitor and attack Gaza from the west. In December, the IDF said its navy had “attacked hundreds of targets and supported soldiers on the ground.”
“It's really hard to imagine that this could be a legal attack,” Janina Dill, co-director at Oxford University's Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, told CNN about the Feb. 5 incident. “At the very least, it would look like a very serious violation of international humanitarian law. Whether it is a criminal offense then depends on questions of intent, which must be clarified in court.”
UNRWA senior legal adviser Philippa Greer said she was in the convoy when it was hit and posted on X that the team was “extremely lucky” that no one was injured.
The convoy then applied for permission to pass through an Israeli checkpoint that monitors entry into the northern Gaza Strip, but was denied entry.
COGAT says items deemed “harmful” are barred from entry.
“Israel facilitates the importation of all humanitarian aid, with a particular emphasis on food, into the Gaza Strip following a process of monitoring and control to ensure that the goods transported are actually humanitarian aid and not other security-related materials could harm Israel,” said a January 14 newsletter.
In a statement to CNN, the US State Department called the Feb. 5 attack on the convoy “unacceptable” and said humanitarian assistance was necessary to reach civilians. “In every conversation we have with the Israeli government, we point out that it is absolutely necessary that humanitarian workers are able to safely distribute aid and that civilians have access to aid, and that Israel takes all possible precautions to protect the civilian population,” said the spokesman.
Half of UNRWA's aid mission applications in the northern Gaza Strip have been rejected since the beginning of the year. according to the agency. Severe delays mean that other permitted journeys are no longer possible.
“Because of the desperation in Gaza, people saw an aid convoy, they came to the aid convoy and took the things from the aid convoy,” Touma told CNN. “Until we receive approval, the aid convoy will be empty.”
Other routes are impassable due to debris and craters, satellite images reviewed by CNN show. The Al-Rashid Road was damaged, leaving a large crater, just weeks before it was designated by the IDF as a key humanitarian route.
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A picture taken on January 29, 2024 shows a large crater on Al Rashid Road in the center of the Gaza Strip, first seen in satellite images last December. Despite the crater, the Israeli military has designated the coastal road as the main route for humanitarian convoys starting January 4, 2024.
The World Food Program announced in a statement on Tuesday that it, too, would pause missions to the northern Gaza Strip “until conditions are in place to allow safe distribution.” This came after another convoy was reportedly hit by gunfire in Gaza City.
Aid operations are further complicated by several other factors – from the threat of UNRWA losing funding to the Israeli military's looming offensive in Rafah to reports of harassment of humanitarian workers.
UNRWA, the largest aid organization on the ground in Gaza, has facilitated urgently needed aid deliveries to Gaza from Israel and Egypt. Its operations came under pressure after allegations were made by Israeli intelligence in late January that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7.
The agency terminated its contracts and launched an investigation. Still, the accusation prompted several UN member states to withdraw funds, and as of February 12, UNRWA had lost 72% of the $1.2 billion it needed to fund humanitarian missions through the end of March.
Abed Zagout/Anadolu/Getty Images
People with empty containers wait for food distribution by charities in Rafah on January 25, 2024.
Given the lack of funding, aid operations in the south are becoming increasingly dangerous. In recent weeks, Israel has begun intensive airstrikes on Rafah, the southernmost part of the Strip where the majority of Gaza's population has fled, and is now planning to intensify its ground operations, a move by French NGO Médecins Sans Frontières Doctors Without Borders said. it would be “catastrophic”.
Meanwhile, there were reports that humanitarian workers were detained and ill-treated by IDF soldiers while passing through these checkpoints. A member of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) was arrested in a World Health Organization convoy during a patient transfer mission in early December, according to a UN report on the incident.
“He said he was harassed, beaten, threatened, stripped of his clothes and blindfolded. His hands were tied behind his back and he was subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment. After his release, he was forced to walk south with his hands tied behind his back and no clothes or shoes,” the report said.
Israel's treatment of aid workers and their convoys will come under further scrutiny when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) holds public hearings between February 19 and 26. The court ordered in late January that Israel must take “immediate and effective measures” to ensure humanitarian access to the Strip.
Craig Jones, a lecturer at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom who wrote a book called “The War Lawyers” examining the legality of the IDF's previous operations in Gaza, believes it is unlikely that Israel will meet the International's criteria of the Court of Justice.
“I don't think there is any way to interpret it other than a deliberate strategy: first the over-administration or withdrawal of aid to the Gaza Strip and then to the specific parts of the Gaza Strip where the aid is most needed,” Jones told CNN.
As the Israeli military offensive continues to push Gaza's population into smaller and smaller parts of the Gaza Strip, the humanitarian situation is becoming increasingly dire.
“Just like everyone says there is no safe place,” Jones explained. “There is also no safe route to Gaza for this aid and for the humanitarian workers who transport it.”
Gianluca Mezzofiore and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.