GENEVA, Dec  14, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Hunger and desperation are driving people
to seize humanitarian aid being delivered to the Gaza Strip, the United Nations
said Thursday, warning of a "breakdown of civil order".

       International aid organisations have struggled to get supplies to desperate
Gazans under Israeli bombardment, with the Rafah crossing in Egypt the only
point of entry.

       Israel has reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing as an inspection checkpoint
to increase the amount of aid reaching the Palestinian territory, but the UN
warned this was not enough.

       "Everywhere you go people are desperate, hungry and are terrified," said
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA),
at a press conference in Geneva.

       "We are teetering on the edge of a possible implosion. We might reach our
limit. Why? Because there is more and more a breakdown of civil order."

       Lazzarini, who has just returned from Gaza, said he saw people stopping aid
trucks to take food and immediately eat it -- something he described as
"completely new" in the Palestinian territory.

       But he said he hadn't heard of any UN or UNRWA trucks being hijacked by
Hamas.

       "This has nothing to do with aid diversion. This has to do with a total
despair," he said, adding that many people UNRWA had met hadn't eaten for one,
two or three days.

       The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel launched by
Hamas militants on October 7 from the Gaza Strip, killing about 1,200 people,
mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages, according to Israeli
officials.

       Aiming to eliminate Hamas, Israel launched a retaliatory military offensive
in Gaza that has killed more than 18,700 people, mostly women and children,
according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

       "With this growing despair, our operating environment becomes more and more
difficult," Lazzarini said, adding that the "little aid trickling into Gaza"
did not match the "immensity of needs".

       He called for a large-scale increase in aid deliveries as the only way, in
the absence of a ceasefire, to help alleviate the situation in Gaza.