There are hundreds of relief trucks inside the border and thousands of vehicles beyond Gaza carrying life-saving food, water, and medical supplies. Only a few miles away, a third of Gaza’s population faces famine, and a growing number of people are losing their lives to malnutrition. Why is delivering aid into the enclave so difficult?
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Although the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations have not been able to distribute the aid, the Israeli military, which controls the entry of all aid into the besieged enclave, claims it has permitted an average of 70 trucks each day since May.
Aid organizations claim that crossing the border into Gaza is only one link in a broken supply chain that is hampered by convoluted bureaucratic procedures, civil unrest, and deadly gunshots, and that this number is already significantly less than the hundreds of trucks required to feed the people.
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“The Kerem Shalom is not a McDonald’s drive through where we just pull up and pick up what we’ve ordered,” U.N. spokesperson St. Phane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday, referring to the main entry point for aid into Gaza from Israel. “There are tremendous security impediments.”
“And, frankly, I think there s a lack of willingness to allow us to do our work,” Dujarric continued.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in May that Israel cannot allow Gaza to go hungry for “practical and diplomatic reasons,” while other leaders, such as Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, have called for a complete halt to aid distribution.
Ben Gvir made the statement, “The humanitarian aid currently entering Gaza is an absolute disgrace,” on X in June. “What is needed in Gaza is not a temporary halt to the ‘humanitarian’ aid, but a complete halt to it.”
How does aid distribution in Gaza work?
Nearly every aspect of the aid distribution procedure is under Israeli supervision. In its most basic form, the Israeli military inspects all incoming aid after it first reaches at one of the border crossings. A truck enters Gaza and unloads its goods if it is authorized. The supply is then picked up by a different network of trucks inside the enclave and sent to humanitarian locations, where Palestinians receive it.
But in reality, the procedure is made more difficult by erratic and frequently impeding circumstances on the ground.
Although thousands of vehicles from outside the border have been denied entry, Israel claims it has no restrictions on the amount of trucks that can enter Gaza.
Israel’s Head of the Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza, Col. Abdullah Halabi, reaffirmed Thursday that the continued delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza is being hindered by the collection problem, not the border crossing.
Although assistance organizations express a desire to provide aid, Israel has hampered the process by imposing delays, denying requests, and altering plans and routes at the last minute, making it difficult or impossible to securely retrieve the material for distribution.
The World Food Programme said Friday that half of the 138 requests it received in the past week to retrieve aid from holding facilities were turned down.
According to WFP, convoys are usually delayed and might take up to 46 hours to obtain final authority to pass along the Strip, even after they have been authorized to carry the supplies.
Although Reuters cited an internal U.S. government review that found no evidence of systematic theft of the food shipments by Hamas over the past 20 months, Israel has long maintained that the limits are in place to prevent Hamas from taking the food.
On Friday, WFP reported that 300 assistance trucks were awaiting distribution within Gaza, while UNRWA reported that over 6,000 supply trucks were awaiting approval in Jordan and Egypt.
UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, stated in an X post on Saturday that the U.N., including UNRWA and its partners, should be allowed to function at scale and without political or bureaucratic obstacles.
Additionally, Lazzarini criticized Israel for permitting foreign assistance airdrops, labeling it a “distraction & screensmoke.” As humanitarian organizations warned at the time, a prior attempt to airdrop assistance in March of last year was insufficient for feeding the populace.
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Delayed convoys
More and more desperate individuals are converging along well-traveled assistance delivery routes in anticipation of oncoming trucks with every convoy that is delayed. As a result, people have been ambushing the relief vehicles, which organizations claim puts their employees in danger.
According to the WFP, during these delays, throngs of hungry people frequently wait for our trucks to arrive and congregate along the anticipated transport routes, which are insufficient.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Wednesday that over 1000 individuals have been murdered in these distinct but frequent episodes in which Israeli troops have opened fire on crowds that were gathered. Particularly violent incidents have occurred close to the distribution centers operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is supported by Israel and the United States.
Still carrying her empty bags, Um Saeed Al-Reefi spoke to the NBC News crew on the ground Thursday after walking to a distribution station close to Rafah.
“All I want to do is give my daughter some food. However, they used gas, pepper spray, and bullets against us. I was having trouble breathing. I fled for my life. As you can see, I returned with nothing,” she remarked. Her account of the attack has not been independently confirmed by NBC News.
A spokesman for Gaza’s Health Ministry, Dr. Khalil Al-Daqran, told NBC News that at least 16 people were murdered on Friday while waiting for aid northwest of Gaza City.
“Safe, sustained access is what is missing right now,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated on Friday. “Workers face constant danger, crossings are unreliable, and critical items are routinely blocked,” added the statement.
Gaza’s aid distribution hasn’t always been this inadequate or lethal.
Deliveries were few but frequent last year when help was being allowed in through the Rafah crossing along the Egyptian border, and U.N. agencies, namely UNRWA, were able to distribute aid without widespread looting or violence.
Although there was stronger police presence and security in Gaza, months of Israeli bombing have left the police severely damaged and the public more desperate.
