\n\tBut aid groups and Palestinians say the changes have only been incremental and are not enough to reverse what food experts say is a \u201d worst-case scenario of famine\u201d unfolding in the war-ravaged territory.
\n\tThe new measures have brought an uptick in the number of aid trucks entering Gaza. But almost none of it reaches UN warehouses for distribution.
\n\tInstead, nearly all the trucks are stripped of their cargo by crowds that overwhelm them on the roads as they drive from the borders. The crowds are a mix of Palestinians desperate for food and gangs armed with knives, axes or pistols who loot the goods to then hoard or sell.
\n\tMany have also been killed trying to grab the aid. Witnesses say Israeli troops often open fire on crowds around the aid trucks, and hospitals have reported hundreds killed or wounded. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots to control crowds or at people who approach its forces. The alternative food distribution system run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has also been marred by violence.
\n\tInternational airdrops of aid have resumed. But aid groups say airdrops deliver only a fraction of what trucks can supply. Also, many parcels have landed in now-inaccessible areas that Palestinians have been told to evacuate, while others have plunged into the Mediterranean Sea, forcing people to swim out to retrieve drenched bags of flour.
\n\tHere\u2019s a look at why the aid isn\u2019t being distributed:
\n\tA lack of trust<\/strong>
\n\tThe UN says that longstanding restrictions on the entry of aid have created an unpredictable environment, and that while a pause in fighting might allow more aid in, Palestinians are not confident aid will reach them.
\n\t\u201cThis has resulted in many of our convoys offloaded directly by starving, desperate people as they continue to face deep levels of hunger and are struggling to feed their families,\u201d said Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.
\n\t\u201cThe only way to reach a level of confidence is by having a sustained flow of aid over a period of time,\u201d she said.
\n\tIsrael blocked food entirely from entering Gaza for 2 \u00bd months starting in March. Since it eased the blockade in late May, it allowed in a trickle of aid trucks for the UN, about 70 a day on average, according to official Israeli figures. That is far below the 500-600 trucks a day that UN agencies say are needed \u2014 the amount that entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year.
\n\tMuch of the aid is stacked up just inside the border in Gaza because UN trucks could not pick it up. The UN says that was because of Israeli military restrictions on its movements and because of the lawlessness in Gaza.
\n\tIsrael has argued that it is allowing sufficient quantities of goods into Gaza and tried to shift the blame to the UN \u201cMore consistent collection and distribution by UN agencies and international organizations = more aid reaching those who need it most in Gaza,\u201d the Israeli military agency in charge of aid coordination, COGAT, said in a statement this week.
\n\tWith the new measures this week, COGAT, says 220-270 truckloads a day were allowed into Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday, and that the UN was able to pick up more trucks, reducing some of the backlog at the border.
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\t
\n\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/sat_image_of_gaza_convoy.jpg\")
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tThis combination of satellite images provided by Planet Labs PBC, shows an area in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, before (eft) and after (right), crowds of people surround an aid convoy on July 26, 2025. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
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<\/p>\n
\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAid missions still face \u2018constraints\u2019<\/strong>
\n\tCherevko said there have been \u201cminor improvements\u201d in approvals by the Israeli military for its movements and some \u201creduced waiting times\u201d for trucks along the road.
\n\tBut she said the aid missions are \u201cstill facing constraints.\u201d Delays of military approval still mean trucks remain idle for long periods, and the military still restricts the routes that the trucks can take onto a single road, which makes it easy for people to know where the trucks are going, UN officials say.
\n\tAntoine Renard, who directs the World Food Program\u2019s operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, said Wednesday that it took nearly 12 hours to bring in 52 trucks on a 10-kilometer (6 mile) route.
\n\t\u201cWhile we\u2019re doing everything that we can to actually respond to the current wave of starvation in Gaza, the conditions that we have are not sufficient to actually make sure that we can break that wave,\u201d he said.
\n\tAid workers say the changes Israel has made in recent days are largely cosmetic. \u201cThese are theatrics, token gestures dressed up as progress,\u201d said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam\u2019s policy lead for Israel and the Palestinian territories.
\n\t\u201cOf course, a handful of trucks, a few hours of tactical pauses and raining energy bars from the sky is not going to fix irreversible harm done to an entire generation of children that have been starved and malnourished for months now,\u201d she said.
\n\t
<\/p>\n
\n\t<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tBreakdown of law and order<\/strong>
\n\tAs desperation mounts, Palestinians are risking their lives to get food, and violence is increasing, say aid workers.
\n\tMuhammad Shehada, a political analyst from Gaza who is a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said aid retrieval has turned into the survival of the fittest. \u201cIt\u2019s a Darwin dystopia, the strongest survive,\u201d he said.
\n\tA truck driver said Wednesday that he has driven food supplies four times from the Zikim crossing on Gaza\u2019s northern border. Every time, he said, crowds a kilometer long (0.6 miles) surrounded his truck and took everything on it after he passed the checkpoint at the edge of the Israeli military-controlled border zones.
\n\tHe said some were desperate people, while others were armed. He said that on Tuesday, for the first time, some in the crowd threatened him with knives or small arms. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his safety.
\n\tAli Al-Derbashi, another truck driver, said that during one trip in July armed men shot the tires, stole everything, including the diesel and batteries and beat him. \u201cIf people weren\u2019t starving, they wouldn\u2019t resort to this,\u201d he said.
\n\tIsrael has said it has offered the UN armed escorts. The UN has refused, saying it can\u2019t be seen to be working with a party to the conflict \u2013 and pointing to the reported shootings when Israeli troops are present.
\n\tUncertainty and humiliation<\/strong>
\n\tIsrael hasn\u2019t given a timeline for how long the measures it implemented this week will continue, heightening uncertainty and urgency among Palestinians to seize the aid before it ends.
\n\tPalestinians say the way it\u2019s being distributed, including being dropped from the sky, is inhumane.
\n\t\u201cThis approach is inappropriate for Palestinians, we are humiliated,\u201d said Rida, a displaced woman.
\n\tMomen Abu Etayya said he almost drowned because his son begged him to get aid that fell into the sea during an aid drop.
\n\t\u201cI threw myself in the ocean to death just to bring him something,\u201d he said. \u201cI was only able to bring him three biscuit packets\u201d.
\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why not enough food is reaching people in Gaza even after Israel eased its blockade
International outcry…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":110012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-110011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114953044876120112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}