Israel gives green light to humanitarian aid and truces for Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced last night that it had airdropped humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. "The airdrop, carried out in coordination with international organizations and led" by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), included "seven aid packages containing flour, sugar, and canned food," according to a statement published by the IDF on Telegram.

According to the Arabic broadcaster Al Jazeera, eleven people were injured when one of the pallets of aid airdropped by the IDF into the Strip last night hit a tent of displaced people near Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Palestinian enclave.

Yesterday:

Israel has made a turning point in the Gaza Strip: Benjamin Netanyahu's government, under strong international pressure, has ordered the resumption of aid and announced a humanitarian truce in some areas of Gaza to facilitate its distribution. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the families of the Israeli hostages that the United States "must change its strategy in Gaza," according to Axios' Washington correspondent Barak Ravid, citing sources who attended the meeting.

The Israeli army will implement a humanitarian ceasefire starting Sunday morning and lasting until the evening in several Gaza City population centers, including the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced to Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in a telephone conversation. The Israeli official confirmed to Tajani that, also in response to a specific request from the Italian government, as part of the humanitarian truce, the IDF will allow the UN and humanitarian organizations safe access to population centers. "Humanitarian truces will be repeated from time to time, based on the need and aim of restoring adequate food and medicine supplies throughout the Gaza Strip," Sa'ar assured. The IDF also authorized the resumption of airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza, in collaboration with international organizations, as well as desalination to create up to 20,000 cubic meters of drinking water, supplying power lines from Israeli territory. Hamas had earlier in the day warned that the skeletal bodies, the corpses among the rubble and in hospitals, the faces gaunt from hunger, could be only the shocking prelude to an "imminent, unprecedented humanitarian disaster" in Gaza: one hundred thousand children under the age of two, including 40,000 newborns, are at risk of dying within days due to the "total lack of baby milk and nutritional supplements, the continued closure of crossings, and the blocking of entry of even the most basic supplies." Meanwhile, the death toll only confirms a catastrophic scenario: in the last 24 hours, at least five people have died of starvation in Gaza, three of them newborns, one of them just a week old.

Israel's openness comes amid a humanitarian situation that the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have described as "appalling." In an effort to bring relief to Gazans, they have announced a joint plan to airdrop aid to the Strip, in partnership with countries like Jordan and with Israel's approval. This is a "desperate" attempt, British sources told the BBC, and an initiative that in any case fails to convince the UN, which considers airdropping relief supplies "inefficient and costly." It's also a way to distract attention from the real problem: Israel's "inaction," which should "lift the siege, open the gates, and ensure safe travel and dignified access to aid." "Transporting goods is much easier, more effective, faster, cheaper, and safer," explained UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini. But for Israel, it represents Hamas's appropriation of aid, leaving nothing for the civilian population. This narrative, however, is apparently unfounded: the New York Times, citing two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved in the affair, claims that the Jewish state has no evidence of any alleged systematic looting of UN aid by Palestinian militants, the main argument used to justify the creation of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Even the US government agency USAID has found no evidence of such systematic thefts, after analyzing 156 cases of looting or loss of US-funded supplies. In any case, Israel has declared through its military agency COGAT that trucks of goods continue to arrive in Gaza—about 90 loaded with food entered yesterday. And it has blamed the famine on the UN, accusing it of inefficient distribution, as "hundreds of pallets of UN aid are still awaiting collection and distribution." While the barrage of accusations continues, food and essential goods remain under the scorching sun for weeks, dramatically deteriorating. So much so that the IDF has destroyed tens of thousands of humanitarian aid items, including large quantities of food intended for Gaza residents, after they expired due to being left unused for too long on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing. "We buried everything and even burned them," an Israeli source told public broadcaster Kan.

"Even today, there are thousands of packages waiting in the sun, and if they aren't transferred to Gaza, we will be forced to destroy them." While chaos reigns over aid and bombings continue across the Strip, deaths continue in Gaza, with the death toll now approaching 60,000 since the start of the war. A truce remains distant, as evidenced by Donald Trump's latest statements, which have lashed out at Hamas, accusing it of "not really wanting" a ceasefire agreement and hostage and prisoner exchange. "These statements are particularly surprising, especially since they come at a time when progress has been made on several negotiating dossiers," commented Hamas official Taher al-Nunu, who expressed similar surprise at Israel and the US's decision to withdraw their negotiating teams from Doha.