Aid groups welcome pauses in fighting but say Israel must do more to ease hunger

Israel’s decision to halt daytime military operations along a key aid route into the southern Gaza Strip could help alleviate a severe hunger crisis, relief groups said Sunday, but they cautioned that the effects would be limited unless security improved, more aid routes opened and hostilities with Hamas ended altogether.

Some aid groups expressed skepticism that the Israeli military’s action would be transformative, noting that it had made similar assurances in the past about increasing the flow of aid. In fact, humanitarian officials said, the amount of aid entering Gaza has declined sharply in recent weeks even as the United Nations has said much more is needed.

“We welcome this announcement,” Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian affairs office, said Sunday. “Of course, this has yet to translate into more aid reaching people in need. We hope this leads to further concrete measures by Israel to address long-standing issues preventing a meaningful humanitarian response in Gaza.”

Israel’s military said that it would pause operations along a route that runs from the Kerem Shalom border crossing in southeastern Gaza to the Salah al-Din Road that goes north. But aid groups said they had not received exact details about the route and how far it would extend. And the immediate criticism of the announcement by some Israeli politicians, relief groups said, raised the question of whether the pause would be sustained.

Laerke said it was crucial that aid groups could deliver aid safely throughout Gaza to relieve the “catastrophic hunger” that is widespread there. He pointed to Israeli military checkpoints within Gaza where aid trucks are often held up for hours or passage is denied altogether. He also said that Israeli authorities had restricted the deliveries of communications and logistics equipment as well as fuel, all of which are vital for humanitarian efforts.

Aid groups and U.N. agencies have said for months that restrictions on aid and commercial goods entering Gaza are causing the hunger crisis. The shortage of food has already led to deaths from malnutrition.

Bushra Khalidi, a policy lead at Oxfam, an international aid group working in Gaza, said Sunday’s announcement represented “cosmetic changes” that Israel could cancel over one attack.

“This is not what a famine response looks like,” she said, adding: “We need real commitments for a permanent cease-fire.”

Aid officials point to obstacles that would remain even if Israel does reduce military activity. Little aid has entered Gaza since early May, when a Hamas rocket attack near Kerem Shalom prompted Israel to close that border crossing and to launch an incursion in Rafah, home to a second major crossing that is now closed.

Egypt shuttered its side of the Rafah crossing after Israel took control of the other side, and Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian officials have wrangled over how to reopen it to aid. Israel reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing days later, but far less aid is getting through there than before the offensive, according to U.N. data.

“There’s no mention of improving the quality and volume of aid,” Arwa Mhanna, a senior adviser for the Middle East at aid group Mercy Corps, said Sunday in response to the Israeli announcement. “We don’t know what’s the plan for that.”

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