Right-wing settlers in Israel question aid deliveries to Gaza residents, peace activists call for aid trucks to be allowed to pass through

In Israel, right-wing settlers are questioning the delivery of aid to the people of the Gaza Strip, while Israeli peace activists are calling for aid trucks to be allowed to pass through.

A Palestinian truck driver is back on the road delivering flour, sugar and salt to Gaza after being attacked by right-wing Israeli settlers last month.

Tamer Muhtaseb and his partners were trying to deliver urgently needed goods at the Tarqumiya checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel when, Muhtaseb said, he was attacked by Israeli settlers who, he said, sabotaged his truck by throwing sacks of flour onto the road.

“They forced us to get out of the car, they started throwing the tools and when I approached the car they beat me,” Muhtaseb said. “If you said a word they beat you and they handcuffed me.”

The Israel Defense Forces told ABC News they condemn attacks on truck drivers.

Before the aid supplies reach Gaza, they change hands several times. Muhtaseb and the other Palestinian drivers park their vehicles at the last checkpoint in the West Bank before loading their goods onto Israeli trucks and transporting them through Israel.

The trucks are supposed to reach one of the five border crossings from Israel to Gaza, but even there they encounter further protests.

ABC News had the opportunity to speak to a settler at the Tarqumiya checkpoint who said she was trying to prevent aid from falling into the hands of Hamas.

“The people who receive this food have raped and murdered our children and we should not give them food,” said the unidentified woman. “This money is now funding Hamas in Gaza.”

She also said: “It is not hatred, and the settlers do not hate them. Rather, the opposite is true. The settlers want to live in peace.”

Many Israelis believe that some of the aid Gaza residents receive has been stolen by Hamas, but aid organizations deny this.

Since the war began, the issue of aid has been deeply controversial and highly political. Aid organizations say Israel could do much more to ensure that urgently needed aid reaches Gaza. Israeli peace activist Alon Lee Green argues for aid to be channeled further.

“We have witnessed so many escalating attacks here,” Green said. “We have seen the right-wingers attack the trucks. They have even set trucks on fire. Two Palestinian drivers have had to go to the hospital. It is a battle for the soul of our own society.”

UN organizations are raising the alarm because there is a high level of hunger, especially in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

The United Nations World Food Programme has suspended the distribution of humanitarian aid from a US-built pier off Gaza over security concerns after one of the deadliest days of the war. It is the latest setback for the $300 million pier, which had only just been reopened after being damaged by rough seas.

However, Israel insists that sufficient aid deliveries are being approved and that it is the aid organizations that are causing the logistical challenges and thus leading to bottlenecks.

“I have been working in Palestine for five years,” said Andrea de Domenico, head of the UN High Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs. “And I have seen three wars in Gaza and constant problems and situations in the West Bank. And I have learned that everything here is politicized. I am quite convinced that there is an intention to make us fail.”

Some aid groups argue that land routes are the most efficient way to deliver aid. Although disruption by settlers does not significantly affect the delivery of aid to Gaza, peace activists like Green patrol the area to ensure that aid has fewer obstacles to overcome on its way to the people of Gaza.

Green was asked if it feels like they are screaming into the void.

“In the first weeks and months of the war, we felt very isolated and lonely and were attacked from all sides,” Green said. “But more and more forces are joining us in calling for a ceasefire and the humanization of all the people who live here.”

“The people who have been killed in Gaza are not going to make us safer,” Green said. “And when you see people starving in Gaza, that’s only going to lead to more violence, for which not only the Palestinians will pay the price, but the Israelis will suffer as well. I mean, we have to live together on this land somehow.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said mediators would continue working on a ceasefire agreement after Hamas proposed changes to a US-backed plan. Some of the proposed changes were seen as “workable”, others were not.