As Israel cuts off all humanitarian aid to Gaza, aid groups say they are scrambling

The blockade that Israel put in place on all humanitarian good entering Gaza amid a standoff with the U.S.- and Israeli-designated terrorist group Hamas over how to keep the ceasefire in Gaza going has sent humanitarian groups into overdrive. Organizations say they’re trying to figure out how to distribute dwindling supplies to the most vulnerable of the enclave’s roughly 2 million people, and there’s fear the situation is only going to get worse.

Officials in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah said Wednesday — three days into Israel’s freeze on food, fuel, medicine and other supplies entering the decimated Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory — that Israel had also cut off electricity to two desalination plants that supply around 70% of the area’s residents with fresh water.  

The aid freeze has imperiled the tenuous progress humanitarian workers say they were making to stave off famine in Gaza during the first phase of the ceasefire that Israel and Hamas agreed to in January. That first phase ended on March 1, and it’s unclear what comes next as Israel pushes for an extension of phase-one, and Hamas demands a transition two a second phase.

“Israel’s decision, to block aid to over two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as Ramadan begins, is a reckless act of collective punishment, explicitly prohibited under international humanitarian law,” the U.K.-based charity Oxfam said in a statement. “Humanitarian aid is not a bargaining chip for applying pressure on parties, but a fundamental right of civilians experiencing urgent need in challenging and life-threatening circumstances.”

Israel says the aid blockade is aimed at pressuring Hamas to accept a proposal to extend the first phase

of the ceasefire, which it says was drafted by the Trump administration. Under the proposal, Israel has demanded that Hamas hand over half of the remaining 59 hostages held in Gaza immediately, which would be a significant change in the terms initially agreed under the deal brokered by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he was prepared to increase the pressure on Hamas, and he would not rule out cutting off electricity to all of Gaza as part of that pressure campaign. 

Human rights and humanitarian, including Oxfam, have accused Israel for months of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza

Aid group says cutoff will have “catastrophic result”

After more than 16 months of war, Gaza’s population is entirely dependent on trucked-in food and other aid. Most residents are displaced from their homes, and many need shelter. Fuel is needed to keep hospitals, water pumps, bakeries and telecommunications — as well as trucks delivering aid — operating.

An estimated 70% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged during the war, and there is no significant stockpile of tents or other temporary shelters in the enclave for Palestinians to rely on during the aid freeze, according to Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council. The aid that came in during the ceasefire’s first phase was “nowhere near enough to address all of the needs,” she said.

Noting that six infants in Gaza died from hypothermia during the first phase of the ceasefire deal, Low said, “if it was enough, we wouldn’t have had infants dying from exposure because of lack of shelter materials and warm clothes and proper medical equipment to treat them.”  

“We’re trying to figure out, what do we have? What would be the best use of our supply?” said Jonathan Crickx, chief of communication for UNICEF. “We never sat on supplies, so it’s not like there’s a huge amount left to distribute.”

Crickx predicted a “catastrophic result” if the aid freeze continues.

During the ceasefire’s first phase, humanitarian agencies rushed in supplies and quickly ramped up their capabilities. Aid workers set up more food kitchens, health centers and water distribution points. With more fuel coming in to power pumps, they were able to double the amount of water drawn from wells, according to the U.N. humanitarian coordination agency, or OCHA.

The U.N. and associated nongovernmental organizations brought in around 100,000 tents as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians tried to return to their homes to find them destroyed or too damaged to live in. But progress relied on the flow of aid continuing.

The International Organization for Migration has 22,500 tents sitting in its warehouses in Jordan after supply trucks brought back their undelivered cargo following Israel’s entry ban, Karl Baker, the agency’s regional crisis coordinator, said.

The International Rescue Committee has 14,771 pounds of medicines and medical supplies waiting to enter Gaza, the delivery of which is now “highly uncertain,” said Bob Kitchen, vice president of the Emergencies and Humanitarian Action Department.

“It’s imperative that aid access is now immediately resumed. With humanitarian needs sky high, more aid access is required, not less,” Kitchen said.

The Medical Aid for Palestinians organization said it has trucks stuck at the border carrying medicine, mattresses and assistive devices for people with disabilities. The organization has some medicine and materials in reserve in Gaza, said MAP spokesperson Tess Pope, but, “we don’t have stock that we can use during a long closure.”

The U.N.’s humanitarian office said Tuesday that prices of vegetables and flour had shot up in Gaza after Israel closed the border crossings.

Sayed Mohamed al-Dairi walked through a bustling market in Gaza City just after the cutoff was announced. Prices that had just started to come down during the ceasefire had jumped back up, as sellers hiked the prices of their dwindling wares.

“The traders are massacring us, the traders are not merciful to us,” he said. “In the morning, the price of sugar was five shekels. Ask him now, the price has become 10 shekels.”

In the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, 2.2 pounds of chicken that had sold for 21 shekels — around $5.76 — is now 50 shekels, or about $14. Cooking gas has soared from 90 shekels — $24.70 — for 26 pounds to the equivalent of $406.24.

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that sparked the war, Israel cut off all aid to Gaza for two weeks. That move was central to South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice. That took place as Israel launched the most intense phase of its aerial bombardment campaign on Gaza, one of the most aggressive in modern history.

With the the fate of the ceasefire deeply uncertain and aid again frozen, Palestinians fear a repeat of that period.

“We are afraid that Netanyahu or Trump will launch a war more severe than the previous war,” said Abeer Obeid, a Palestinian woman from northern Gaza. 

“The crossings are the means by which people obtain the basic necessities of life, why are they closing them,” she asked. “For the extension of the truce, they must find any other solution.”

Haley Ott

contributed to this report.