For Abdelhalim Awad, who runs a bakery in central Gaza, the hope of food arriving for hungry Gazans has become like the endless reports of an approaching cease-fire: constantly rumored to be just around the corner yet always out of reach.
Three days after Israel announced that it would ease its blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, it appeared on Wednesday that little, if any, of the desperately needed food, fuel and medicine had reached hungry Palestinians.
Dozens of trucks ferrying supplies have crossed into Gaza at the Israeli-controlled border crossing of Kerem Shalom, according to Israel. But the United Nations has so far been unable to move any trucks from Kerem Shalom to warehouses inside Gaza, according to two U.N. officials, who requested anonymity to share sensitive details.
Stephane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said on Tuesday that U.N. teams had waited for several hours for Israeli permission to head to the crossing. But they were unable to “secure the arrival” of those supplies to aid warehouses, he said at a news conference.
Mr. Awad said he and others had been informed by the United Nations that some shipments of flour might arrive on Wednesday. But even if they did, it would only be a dent the daily hunger that became widespread in Gaza under the Israeli blockade.
“Even if we get some flour today, it seems we won’t have anything close to what’s needed to feed people,” Mr. Awad said.
In the meantime, Palestinians reeling from Israel’s two-month ban on food, fuel and other supplies have been left waiting. The delays suggested that distributing aid across Gaza was likely to take time, even as Israel threatens a major ground offensive that could upend the process.
“Today we will mostly eat lentils, or pasta,” Riyadh al-Housari, a 25-year-old in Gaza City, said in a phone interview. “We eat one meal in the late afternoon. It is one meal and there is no other.”
Israel’s blockade has rendered the situation so dire that Gazans are at “critical risk of famine,” a panel of U.N.-backed experts said this month. They projected that tens of thousands of children could suffer from acute malnutrition if the restrictions continued. Israel argued the report was based on faulty data and assumptions.
The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza has ignited growing international opprobrium against the Israeli campaign against Hamas. Even Israel’s allies — who offered vigorous support after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks started the war — have voiced frustration and even anger over the conflict and its cost to ordinary Palestinians.
This week Britain, France, and Canada denounced the Israeli blockade and planned ground offensive in unusually stark and harsh terms, labeling them “disproportionate” and “egregious.” On Tuesday, the British government said it was suspending negotiations on expanding the countries’ free-trade agreement in protest.
On Wednesday, the newly anointed pope, Leo XIV, joined the chorus calling for aid to be allowed into the Gaza Strip. He described the situation as “increasingly worrying and painful” and urged “the entry of dignified humanitarian aid and to put an end to the hostilities.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, rejected the international criticism and reiterated his threat for a huge escalation of the war in Gaza. He described the coming ground offensive as the final and decisive blow against Hamas, adding that by the end of it, “all of Gaza’s territory will be under Israeli security control.”
The Israeli ban on humanitarian aid began in early March, as the initial phase of a two-month cease-fire between Israel and Hamas ended. Both sides were supposed to be negotiating the next steps in the truce. Israeli officials argued the restrictions aimed to pressure Hamas to compromise.
The impact on ordinary Gazans was immense: Aid organizations suspended their operations as food stockpiles dwindled, and the price of food skyrocketed. In late March, Israel ended the truce with a massive bombardment and resumed its offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
By this month relief officials were warning that widespread hunger had become a daily reality. But for weeks, Israel refused to allow aid agencies to resume operations unless they agreed to new Israeli conditions, purportedly to prevent supplies from falling into Hamas’s hands.
Israeli leaders publicly insisted that Gaza still had plentiful stockpiles of food. But behind closed doors, some military officials privately concluded that Palestinians there could face starvation within weeks.
Even the United States — one of Israel’s most stalwart supporters throughout the conflict — began suggesting that the humanitarian crisis was spiraling out of control. Last week, President Trump said that “a lot of people are starving” in the Gaza Strip and that the United States was working to alleviate the situation.
After those comments by Mr. Trump, the Israeli authorities relented on Sunday night, announcing that they would begin allowing in small amounts of food.
Without any new aid having actually arrived, many in Gaza are trying to make whatever provisions they have last as long as possible. “We don’t plan meals anymore,” said Sabah ِAbu al-Roos, 63, in the central city of Deir al-Balah. “We just work with whatever we can find.”
Produce like eggplants and tomatoes is often hawked at eye-watering prices, according to several Gazans. Ms. Abu al-Roos said that one vendor in a local street market had been selling a single onion for $8.50.
Iman Jundiyeh, a mother of four in Gaza City, said she could only dream of the regular meals she used to enjoy before the war: fragrant sliced lamb; chicken, potatoes and rice; and maftoul, a kind of Palestinian couscous.
She now relies almost exclusively on soup kitchens run by charities that still manage to stew pots of lentils and other staples for crowds of displaced Palestinians. Everything else is either unavailable or too expensive, she said.
“Just yesterday, my son begged me for watermelon,” said Ms. Jundiyeh. “I started to cry with him.”
Ameera Harouda, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
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