Israel to let more aid trucks into Gaza, under pressure over hunger crisis

Washington Post

3 days ago

JERUSALEM — Israel was poised Sunday to begin allowing more trucks of food aid into Gaza, and it resumed supplying power to a critical water treatment plant, marking a political turnaround four months after Benjamin Netanyahu's government started tightly controlling the flow of humanitarian aid to pressure Hamas.
It was not immediately clear whether the changes announced by Israel would be enough to stave off an accelerating starvation crisis, but U.N. officials said Sunday that Israel appeared willing to allow more trucks to enter Gaza than before. Scores of trucks from Egypt and Jordan set off for Gaza early Sunday, and the Israeli military said it would facilitate the movement of U.N. and other aid convoys inside the besieged territory.
But according to an internal U.N. memo seen by The Washington Post, Israel has guaranteed only that there would be an uptick in aid and 'tactical pauses' in fighting to allow its delivery for one week, effective Sunday. An Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with protocol, said he was unaware that there was a week-long limitation to the aid restrictions being lifted. The Israeli military publicly said it would carry out 'tactical pauses' in three areas of Gaza to facilitate the increased entry of aid 'until further notice.'
In addition, Israel permitted multiple countries to begin airdropping food into Gaza on Sunday after the Israeli Air Force delivered a small initial package Saturday night. But far more food can be transported over land, and aid professionals have been urgently calling on Israel to lift restrictions on the United Nations' operations, which have been heavily criticized by Israel but are considered the most efficient way to supply nearly 2 million Gazans.
Gaza's Health Ministry recorded six new deaths from malnutrition Sunday, bringing the total to 133, including 87 children. Just a month before, the number of deaths from starvation during the war stood at 65. Medics and experts have said that the ministry's figures are probably an undercount given how rarely malnutrition is listed as the primary cause of death and that once mass hunger sets in, fatalities may rise exponentially. An Israeli military official acknowledged this week to reporters that Gaza was facing a 'lack of food security' but denied there was famine.
Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Israel's Hebrew University, said Netanyahu's heavy restrictions on aid, implemented to satisfy far-right coalition allies who have fiercely resisted the provision of any assistance to Gaza and who have called for a full military occupation of the Strip, were becoming increasingly untenable. The weekend decision to allow in more food came only after the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, entered its summer recess, she noted.
'Netanyahu understands the international pressure is mounting, and that the situation cannot be resolved through all the obstacles he put himself into … in order to protect his coalition,' Talshir said.
For months, right-wing Israeli politicians and military hard-liners have justified the restrictions on the U.N. by arguing that its supplies often fall into the hands of Hamas militants — a claim that has been rejected by Western governments and U.N. officials. Permitting the free flow of U.N. aid now would represent a significant change months after Israel sidelined the international body and backed a privately run venture called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has come under criticism for supplying inadequate food to only parts of Gaza and leaving packages in chaotic sites where mobs of desperate aid seekers often come into contact with Israeli troops.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking aid since the system changed in May, the majority of them near GHF sites, according to the U.N. human rights office. The GHF denies there has been any violence inside the sites themselves.
U.N. officials said early Sunday that they were still trying to ascertain details from Israeli officials about how the new policies will be implemented, but they welcomed the changes, which would include a lifting of customs requirements for trucks from Egypt and the facilitation of the entry of food and medicines, as well as hygiene and water treatment items. It was not clear on Sunday how significant the increase in aid would be, they said.
'There is an opportunity to use the opening for the possible scale up wherever we can and save lives, as much as operational reality will allow,' Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, said in the internal memo viewed by The Post.
Israel resumed supplying electricity to a coastal desalination plant that had been shut in March after pressure from right-wing politicians. The plant, which resumed operating Saturday, is now producing about 18,000 cubic meters of fresh water per day, Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility said. Residents have been facing a shortage of fresh water for drinking and cooking, and aid agencies have reported an explosion of infectious diseases because of poor sanitation.
The changes provoked an angry response almost immediately from the Israeli far right. As a small group of protesters gathered Sunday morning to block aid trucks entering from Egypt, Netanyahu's national security minister, the ultranationalist settler leader Itamar Ben Gvir, took to social media to accuse the prime minister of discussing and implementing the loosening of aid behind his back.
'On Saturday night, I was informed by a source in the Prime Minister's Office that during the Sabbath, a security consultation was held without me,' Ben-Gvir wrote on X. 'It turns out that the 'alternative way' is to surrender to Hamas and its false campaigns and to increase the humanitarian aid that reaches it directly. … The only way to win the war and bring back the hostages is to completely halt the 'humanitarian' aid, conquer the entire Gaza Strip and encourage voluntary emigration.'
Cheeseman reported from Beirut, and Soroka reported from Tel Aviv.