The U.N. food agency says Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have blocked and offloaded dozens of food trucks as desperation mounts following Israel’s monthslong blockade and airstrikes.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Shehada Hijazi woke at dawn. It was his best chance, he thought, to get his hands on a package of food at a new distribution site run by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed foundation in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of others, equally desperate to feed their hungry families , had the same idea.

Hamas’s control over the people of Gaza is slipping, as seen most recently in its inability to keep Palestinians from raiding food storage facilities to escape starvation. A warehouse operated by the United Nations was broken into on Wednesday by a mob of Palestinian civilians desperate to acquire food amid the worsening famine.