Cigarette Smuggling Complicating Gaza Aid

Organized gangs have been attacking humanitarian aid convoys in Gaza to retrieve cigarettes smuggled inside the shipments, reports The New York Times.

Following the war between Israel and Hamas, cigarettes have become increasingly scarce in tightly blockaded Gaza, with smokers paying up to $30 for a single stick.

To evade Israeli inspections, smugglers have been hiding cigarettes in sacks of United Nations-donated flour, diapers and even a watermelon, according to aid agencies and an Israeli military official.

Officials said that most of the trucks bearing cigarettes appeared to come from Egypt, which rerouted trucks arriving from Egyptian territory through Kerem Shalom after Israel captured the Rafah border crossing in early May.

Convoys ferrying U.N. aid are often an easier target than private businessmen, who are willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in protection money to guards or to the organized gangs themselves.