After an 11-week total blockade of humanitarian and commercial goods into the Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities have temporarily allowed the resumption of limited aid deliveries since Monday. While the entry of some trucks has been welcomed as a positive development, as of Wednesday night none of the supplies had reached those in need, amid extreme deprivation throughout the territory.
For more than 19 months, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe has been ravaging Gaza, with people dying from widespread violence, lack of health care, disease, hunger, dehydration and hypothermia. And the situation keeps getting worse by the day.
More than 2 million people remain trapped, bombed and starving inside the territory, while Israeli attacks on civilians, aid workers, UN personnel, hospitals, ambulances and other civilian targets continue with impunity.
Humanitarian organizations warn that the humanitarian aid that has begun to enter Gaza is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of a population already on the brink of survival or dying due to extreme shortages of food.
UN relief chief Tom Fletcher has described the limited aid that has entered Gaza since Monday as "a drop in the ocean" of what is needed to address the massive scale of humanitarian needs in Gaza. On Monday, he called on Israeli authorities to open at least two crossings into Gaza, one in the north and one in the south.
He urged them to simplify and expedite procedures, remove all quotas and access restrictions within Gaza, and refrain from launching attacks in areas and at times of delivery. Fletcher also urged the authorities to allow the UN and other humanitarian agencies to meet the full range of needs - food, water, sanitation, shelter, health, fuel, gas and beyond.
“To reduce looting, there must be a regular flow of aid, and humanitarians must be permitted to use multiple routes. Commercial goods should complement the humanitarian response,” he said.
Also on Monday, in a joint donor statement on humanitarian aid to Gaza, foreign ministers from 24 countries and European Union leaders called on the Israeli government to "allow a full resumption of aid into Gaza immediately and enable the UN and humanitarian organizations to work independently and impartially to save lives, reduce suffering and maintain dignity.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Wednesday that over the course of the last two days, Israeli authorities had granted access to the Kerem Shalom crossing, allowing its teams to reach additional humanitarian supplies such as food, medicine and wheat flour that entered Gaza on Monday and Tuesday.
OCHA notes that the Israeli authorities are requiring the UN to unload the supplies on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing and reload them separately.
Meanwhile, other critical supplies, such as hygiene items or fuel, have not been allowed into Kerem Shalom by Israeli authorities. As of Wednesday evening, local time, none of the aid has been able to leave the Kerem Shalom loading area and reach those in desperate need.
For more than two months, the Israeli government imposed a complete blockade on the Gaza Strip, prohibiting the entry of all goods, including food, medicine and fuel. On May 18, Israeli authorities allowed the UN to temporarily resume the delivery of limited aid to Gaza.
As of Wednesday evening, Israeli sources reported that 198 trucks had entered the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing, carrying vital relief supplies. During the night, some 90 truckloads of goods were collected by humanitarian organizations for distribution.
However, the UN stresses that the limited supplies finally allowed through the Kerem Shalom crossing at Gaza's southern border are nowhere near enough to meet the tremendous needs in Gaza.
Amid ongoing Israeli attacks, large numbers of people continue to be displaced - once again fleeing for their lives amid intense bombardment of their communities and with no safe place to seek shelter or supplies. Israel's systematic destruction of civilian life and the infrastructure on which civilians depend to survive continues.
Relief agencies report that nearly half of those newly displaced in recent days have fled with none of their belongings. The continued displacement of Gaza's population is putting immense pressure on humanitarian workers on the ground, especially when food and basic necessities are not allowed in.
Families are starving, suffering from deep trauma, and there is nowhere safe to go as Israeli attacks hit civilians and vital civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, and more displacement orders are issued.
According to Gaza health officials, 716 Palestinians were killed and 2,104 injured in Israeli attacks between May 15 and 21 alone.
According to OCHA, some 81 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip is now within Israeli militarized zones or under forced displacement orders.
Humanitarian organizations warn of acute levels of hunger, a higher proportion of children diagnosed with acute malnutrition, and an increasing risk of famine.
While famine has not yet been declared, people continue to starve. Since the aid blockade began on March 2, 57 children have reportedly died of malnutrition, according to Gaza officials. The World Health Organization (WHO) says this number is likely an underestimate and is likely to rise.
Three-quarters of the population of the Gaza Strip faces emergency or catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, according to an update of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) for the Gaza Strip released in mid-May.
The entire population of 2.1 million is estimated to face high levels of acute hunger between now and the end of September 2025, with half a million people experiencing starvation (IPC5). More than one million people are at emergency levels (IPC 4), and the remaining half million are at crisis levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 3).
The IPC analysis projects that 71,000 children under the age of five, including more than 14,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM), and nearly 17,000 pregnant and lactating women are in need of urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.
Starting on March 18, 2025, the Israeli military escalated its bombardment from the air, land and sea across the Gaza Strip and expanded its ground operations, resulting in thousands of casualties, destruction of civilian infrastructure and massive displacement of people.
Since Israel broke the ceasefire and resumed its attacks on Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 3,500 Palestinians, most of them children, women and the elderly, and injured more than 9,900, bringing the total recorded death toll since October 2023 to more than 53,600, with nearly 122,000 injured, most of them civilians.
But the true numbers are estimated to be much higher. Thousands more remain buried under the rubble as lack of equipment and insecurity hamper efforts to rescue the wounded and missing. Thousands more are estimated to have died from indirect causes such as lack of medical care, dehydration and starvation.
Among the recorded dead are more than 15,000 children, 437 aid workers, 305 UN staff, 1,400 health workers and 219 journalists.
Prior to the Israeli government's total siege, humanitarian aid to Gaza had been obstructed by the Israeli authorities for more than a year, in gross violation of international humanitarian law and in apparent use as a method of warfare, a war crime.
Leading human rights organizations and rights experts point out that the total blockade, as well as the obstruction of humanitarian aid, is not only a flagrant war crime, but also part of a genocide against the population of Gaza, as the actions of the Israeli government are apparently aimed at deliberately inflicting living conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a group or part of a group, as defined in the Genocide Convention.
At the same time, Israel's war in Gaza continues to be characterized by grave war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israeli military and government officials.
Some of the worst crimes perpetrated by Israeli officials in Gaza include collective punishment of civilians, use of starvation as a method of warfare, denial of humanitarian aid, targeted killings of civilians, indiscriminate killings of civilians, targeted killings of aid workers, disproportionate attacks, deliberate attacks on civilian objects, forcible transfer, torture, enforced disappearances, and other atrocity crimes.
Despite the fact that Israeli officials have been accused of committing some of the worst crimes known to humankind, the Government of Israel continues to receive financial, military, economic, and political support from the United States government and other allies.
International watchdogs such as the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P) say that 19 months into Israel's assault on Gaza, the "incremental strengthening of international rhetoric" against Israel's actions remains "wholly insufficient" if not accompanied by decisive action to stop genocide and other atrocities.
“All states must refrain from aiding and abetting atrocities in Gaza. States must impose comprehensive arms embargoes and targeted sanctions, suspend trade agreements and use all available economic and political measures to uphold their Responsibility to Protect by adhering to their obligations under the Genocide Convention,” GCR2P said.
Briefing the UN Security Council last week on the catastrophic reality in Gaza, UN aid chief Fletcher called on the Israeli authorities to stop killing and injuring civilians, lift the brutal blockade and allow humanitarian workers to save lives.
Referring to previous briefings to the Council on the deliberate obstruction of aid and the systematic destruction of Palestinian lives in Gaza, he said that while the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will weigh such testimony when it considers whether genocide is taking place in Gaza, "it will be too late."
“So, for those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now? Will you act – decisively – to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?”