Israel: Hamas Blocks Aid Trucks Heading to North Gaza Strip

Israel accused Hamas Sunday of blocking a convoy of humanitarian aid trucks destined for the northern Gaza Strip under a deal to release additional Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian terrorist group.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) posted an image on Twitter of a long line of aid trucks and said that Hamas was preventing them from entering.

The photo shows ambulances moving south into the southern Gaza Strip, and a large convoy of aid trucks, lined up, facing north.

Under the deal, Hamas is to release at least 50 Israeli hostages, all women and children, over four days, in return for a pause in fighting; a release of 150 female and teenage Palestinian terror convicts; and 200 aid trucks daily, including 50 to Northern Gaza.

Dr. Ron Schleifer, who studies psychological warfare at Ariel University, commented on Hamas’s blockade by noting that it had a propaganda purpose.

Groups like Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) learned from the North Vietnamese experience in war against the United States, he said, and would make their own people suffer if doing so would yield propaganda wins in the West.

Such propaganda victories could be more effective than military victories on the ground in achieving the groups’ objectives.

Hamas has routinely exposed Palestinian civilians to the impacts of war and then shown — or staged — the result for publication by the international media. The result is global outrage against Israel and pressure on Israel to stop the war against Hamas.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.