A French historian who spent more than a month in the Gaza Strip says he witnessed “utterly convincing” evidence that the Israeli occupation played a role in attacks on aid convoys during the height of the war.

Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po in Paris, entered Gaza in December and was hosted by an international humanitarian organization in the coastal area of al-Mawasi. While foreign media and independent observers were barred from the enclave by the Israeli occupation, Filiu managed to avoid strict vetting procedures and documented what he described as orchestrated chaos around lifesaving aid deliveries. 

His eyewitness account, A Historian in Gaza, was published in French in May and released in English this month.

According to Filiu, Israeli occupation forces repeatedly struck security units guarding humanitarian convoys. The attacks, he writes, enabled looters to seize large quantities of food and supplies intended for Palestinians facing famine conditions.

UN agencies at the time warned that law and order in Gaza had collapsed after occupation forces deliberately targeted police officers who escorted aid convoys. The Israeli occupation labels Gaza’s police as part of Hamas, which has run the territory since 2007.

'Quadcopters supporting the looters'

Filiu recounts an incident near where he was staying in the so-called “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi. After weeks of attacks on convoys by desperate civilians, local gangs, and militias, humanitarian officials tested a new route to try to prevent looting.

Sixty-six trucks carrying flour and hygiene kits set out from Karem Abu Salem, before turning north up the main coastal road. Hamas arranged protective escorts with armed members of powerful local families. The convoy then came under attack.

“It was one night, and I was… a few hundred metres away. And it was very clear that Israeli quadcopters were supporting the looters in attacking the local security [teams],” Filiu writes.

He says occupation forces killed “two local notables as they sat in their car, armed and ready to protect the convoy,” and that twenty trucks were subsequently robbed. Aid officials considered the loss of one-third of the convoy a grim improvement compared with earlier raids that looted nearly everything.

UN memo: 'passive, if not active benevolence'

Filiu says the occupation’s strategy was to undermine both Hamas and the UN, while enabling allied looters to either redistribute aid to expand their influence or sell it for profit.

Israeli officials rejected his account. A military spokesperson claimed the targeted vehicle carried “armed terrorists” planning to steal aid for Hamas. The spokesperson said the occupation “will continue to act in accordance with international law to enable and facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid.”

Filiu’s reporting echoes internal UN concerns. A confidential memo from the time described the occupation’s “passive, if not active benevolence” toward gangs involved in looting.

He also alleges that Israeli forces bombed a newly established aid route promoted by the World Food Programme in an attempt to stop looting hotspots. He told The Guardian it was a “deliberate attempt to put it out of action.”

Despite denials, Netanyahu has acknowledged that “Israel” supported the Popular Forces, an anti-Hamas militia that, according to aid officials, included many of the looters.

Gaza “erased, annihilated'

Filiu, who has visited Gaza for decades, said he was stunned at the scale of destruction left by the Israeli occupation’s offensive, launched after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023. That attack killed about 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage.

The Israeli regime's assault killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians and reduced much of Gaza to ruins. "Anything that stood before … has been ‘erased, annihilated, ’" he said.

Filiu warned that the war has set a precedent for a future "post-UN world" devoid of legal and humanitarian limits. "It’s a laboratory of a post-Geneva convention world, of a post-declaration of human rights world … and this world is very scary because it’s not even rational. It’s just ferocious."