Over 100 aid trucks: A drop in the ocean for starved Gaza under Israeli blockade
DaysofPal – More than 100 aid trucks carrying flour, medicine, and emergency food entered the Gaza Strip on Thursday, offering a glimmer of relief to a population facing catastrophic conditions under Israel's blockade.
However, humanitarian agencies and local officials stress that the supplies are grossly insufficient to meet the desperate needs of over two million Palestinians.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had successfully delivered its first medical shipment to Gaza since March 2, describing the effort as severely inadequate. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday on X (formerly Twitter) that the nine trucks that entered Gaza were 'a drop in the ocean.'
'Nine trucks loaded with essential medical supplies, 2,000 blood units, and 1,500 plasma units crossed into the Palestinian territory via the Kerem Shalom crossing without any incidents of looting, despite the dangerous conditions along the way,' Tedros stated.
'These supplies will be distributed to priority hospitals in the coming days,' he added.
According to Tedros, the blood and plasma have been delivered to a cold storage facility at the Nasser Medical Complex and will be distributed to hospitals facing severe shortages, especially those overwhelmed by a growing number of casualties, many of them injured at food distribution points.
Despite the entry of some aid, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to deepen, with deliberate restrictions, logistical bottlenecks, and systemic chaos undermining relief efforts. UN agencies and Palestinian civil society figures accuse Israeli forces of intentionally obstructing and destabilizing aid delivery.
On Wednesday, Palestinian community leaders managed to facilitate the safe arrival of food supplies into warehouses in Gaza City, bypassing chaotic aid scenes.
However, the Israeli military swiftly blocked further deliveries, claiming that the warehouses were under the control of Hamas.
'Israel and its army are keen to perpetuate scenes of chaos and crowds of hungry people in front of aid trucks arriving in the Gaza Strip,' a humanitarian worker told local media. 'They are thwarting all attempts to get aid smoothly to distribution warehouses by targeting the personnel responsible for securing them.'
Since Israel reauthorized limited aid entry in late May, chaotic scenes and attacks on convoys have frequently prevented aid from reaching northern Gaza, home to many of the most vulnerable.
In response, Palestinian clans in Gaza have begun protecting trucks and coordinating their passage to aid agencies, stepping in where international systems have broken down.
Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Network of Civil Society Organizations in Gaza, accused Israel on Thursday of deliberately sabotaging aid delivery efforts.
'Only 45 trucks have reached the northern Gaza Strip,' he said, warning that the health sector has collapsed by 85%, with more than 80% of medicines and equipment in short supply.
'Israel's control over aid is a strategy to starve the population. The absence of accountability only encourages it to continue its crimes,' he added.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) criticized the limitations imposed on aid distribution, calling the current system unsustainable and irrational.
'Relying on only four distribution points to deliver humanitarian aid to nearly two million people is illogical,' the agency said in a statement.
It added that over 3,000 trucks filled with aid are still waiting at Gaza's border due to ongoing Israeli restrictions and logistical obstacles.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA's commissioner-general, warned of a rapidly deteriorating situation:
'Two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are facing starvation and thirst, while food and medical aid piles up at the border,' he said.
He added that fuel entry has been blocked for more than 100 days, causing a deliberate collapse of Gaza's water infrastructure.
According to UNRWA, only 40% of Gaza's drinking water production facilities remain operational. Lazzarini described the situation as a 'man-made drought,' underscoring the gravity of the crisis.
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