Humanitarian Aid in Gaza: Here is what I know
The situation in Gaza right now is chaotic. Since April 2024, Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza (JHG), an Israeli-Palestinian international consortium led by Damour for Community Development and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, has brought in food, clothing, hygiene kits, tents and other supplies and equipment to displaced persons shelters in Gaza. While the flow of supplies and equipment has been intermittent due to the changing policies of the IDF and the situation on the ground, none of the supplies or equipment sent into Gaza by JHG were stolen. All shipments made it to their designated beneficiaries.
It is my understanding that throughout this period, up until March 2nd, 2025, when Israel decided to block all humanitarian aid going into Gaza, some humanitarian aid was stolen by Hamas or by other groups.
We work with a cluster of international humanitarian aid organizations that sent supplies and equipment into Gaza prior to the March blockade. The reports we received from those organizations were that while some supplies were stolen, the picture that most supplies were taken by Hamas is highly inaccurate and that most shipments made it to their destinations.
Since the March 2nd blockade, the situation in Gaza has become much more dire. Food prices on the black market have soared, and many families struggle to find enough food and water to survive. In response to this situation, JHG raised funds and paid money to buy food packages for families and then hot meals for Gazans from sources inside of Gaza. Food was purchased from those who had stored dried food, and some fresh vegetables were also purchased from local farmers still able to farm. More recently, JHG has been asked to address the water scarcity crisis in the displaced persons shelters.
The situation on the ground is in constant flux and our team from Damour, the Arava Institute and other partners must be flexible and be able to respond in real time to immediate needs. The entrance of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has enabled food to start moving into Gaza again; however, it has not contributed to stability but only seems to have added to the chaos. Large portions of the civilian population in Gaza have had no access to food for months due to the Israeli blockade. This has created a situation where desperately hungry Palestinians attack aid trucks to get their hands on food to ensure the survival of their families. Some of those attacking the trucks are criminals or criminal gangs, however, as a colleague from Damour has described to me, “in the vacuum created by the war in Gaza, social norms and customs are breaking down. Gaza’s social structure, which is deeply rooted in extended family networks (Hamulot), has historically fostered mutual aid and solidarity, especially in times of crisis. These attacks do not reflect the behavior of “Hamulot” or the broader Palestinian society, but rather the breakdown of law and order under extreme siege and displacement.”
I understand from both news reports and from our international partners that a large percentage of aid trucks going into Gaza headed for GHF Hubs are attacked and their supplies are taken. I have seen no evidence which confirms the Israeli government narrative that most of the supplies taken from the aid trucks is going to Hamas, neither before the March 2nd blockade nor since the blockade was lifted to allow GHF to receive supplies.
Large portions of the civilian population remain without access to life-sustaining food. Gaza has gone from having over 400 distribution points of international aid prior to the March 2nd blockade to just four GHF Hubs. To access food, members of Palestinian families in Gaza are forced to walk, often many kilometers, through a war zone to wait in line for hours to get food packages which they must carry back to their families. There is no transportation other than by foot since there is no fuel for vehicles and even the donkeys have disappeared. The food distribution at the GHF Hubs is perceived as dangerous by Palestinians who are afraid to approach the Hubs due to reported shootings of hundreds of civilians. The policy of concentrating the distribution of humanitarian aid into a very limited number of distribution points goes against all international aid distribution norms. Damour and the Arava Institute, through our initiative Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza, have followed the international norm of providing aid where displaced persons (DPs) are sheltered. Demanding that DPs leave their shelters and go to an aid distribution center, often kilometers away, puts civilians in danger and ignores the fact that there are elderly, wounded, orphaned, and vulnerable people who cannot get to those GHF Hubs. It will also be impossible for such Hubs to distribute much-needed larger aid items such as tents, cooking, WASH and energy equipment, etc.
The Israeli government narrative that the previous system of aid distribution through international aid organizations resulted in most aid falling into the hands of Hamas is a distortion of the truth. While there is no question that Hamas was able to steal some of the aid entering Gaza, prior to the March 2nd blockage, according to our international partners, most aid did not end up in Hamas’s hands but reached the designated beneficiaries. Our own experience in delivering aid bears witness to this assertion. The Israeli American GHF Hubs experiment has been a disaster, resulted in the loss of lives and the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The Israeli government must allow the international aid organizations including our own JHG initiative to resume bringing aid into Gaza and distributing aid to the displaced Palestinian civilian population wherever they are sheltering.
