The Gaza aid convoy that ended in bloodshed this week was organized by Israel itself as part of a new partnership with local Palestinian businessmen, according to Israeli officials, Palestinian businessmen and Western diplomats.
Israel has participated in at least four such aid convoys to northern Gaza in the past week. He undertook the effort, Israeli officials told two Western diplomats, to fill a gap in aid to northern Gaza, where famine is looming as international aid groups suspended most operations, citing Israeli refusals to light aid trucks and growing lawlessness. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.
Israeli officials have contacted several Gazan businessmen and asked them to help organize private aid convoys to the north, two of the businessmen said, while Israel will provide security.
The United Nations has warned that more than 570,000 Gazans — particularly in northern Gaza — face “catastrophic levels of deprivation and hunger” after nearly five months of war and an almost total Israeli blockade of the area following the October 7 attacks led by Hamas .
Some residents have resorted to raiding the cupboards of neighbors who left their homes, while others ground animal feed into flour. UN aid convoys carrying essential goods to northern Gaza have been looted — either by civilians fearing starvation or by organized gangs — amid the lawlessness that has followed Israel’s ground invasion.
“My family, friends and neighbors are starving,” said Jawdat Khoudary, a Palestinian businessman who helped organize some of the trucks participating in the Israeli aid initiative.
The motorcade that arrived in Gaza City before dawn on Thursday ended in tragedy. More than 100 Palestinians were killed when several thousand people gathered around trucks loaded with food and supplies, Gaza health officials said.
Israeli and Palestinian officials and witnesses offered sharply differing accounts of the chaos. Witnesses described widespread shelling by Israeli forces, and doctors in Gaza hospitals said most of the casualties were from gunfire. But the Israeli military said most of the victims were trampled in a stampede of people trying to grab the cargo.
Israel also acknowledged that its troops opened fire on members of the crowd who, the military said, approached the troops “in a manner that endangered them.”
The deaths sparked global outrage and increased pressure on Israel to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would allow more aid to Gaza.
The United States has tried to broker such a deal, and on Saturday, as the US began its own effort to drop air aid into Gaza, US and Israeli officials said Vice President Kamala Harris would meet with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s military cabinet, at the White House on Monday.
Israel has agreed to a plan that would include a six-week ceasefire, the release of dozens of the most “vulnerable” Israeli hostages in Gaza and the entry of more aid convoys into the ground, a US official said.
The United States and other countries, including Egypt and Qatar, are trying to persuade Hamas to accept the deal, the US official said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing diplomacy.
On Saturday afternoon, three US Air Force cargo planes released 66 pallets containing 38,000 ready-to-eat meals in southwestern Gaza – a small portion of the food and other supplies needed in an area of 2.2 million people. President Biden had announced the airstrikes on Friday, saying: “Innocent lives are on the line.”
Izzat Aqel, a Gazan businessman who told The New York Times he helped coordinate the trucks in Thursday’s convoy, said an Israeli military officer asked him about 10 days earlier to organize aid trucks in northern Gaza with as much food and water.
And on Thursday, an Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said the convoy was part of several days of humanitarian operations in northern Gaza overseen by Israeli troops.
“For the last four days, convoys like ours this morning – this morning there were 38 trucks – have gone through northern Gaza to distribute food supplies that are international donations but in private vehicles,” he told Britain’s Channel 4 television.
The convoy that ended in disaster left the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza before heading to areas of northern Gaza that had not seen aid in weeks, Mr. Aqel said. In an effort to ensure the safety of the trucks, he added, they entered northern Gaza in the dark around 4:45 am.
Since the start of the war, Israel has been loathe to take responsibility for the care of Gaza’s civilians. But the bombing campaign and its ground invasion have decimated Hamas’ control of northern Gaza, leaving a security vacuum amid a humanitarian disaster that worsens by the day.
Conditions have deteriorated rapidly. The number of aid trucks entering Gaza dropped significantly in February, both due to growing lawlessness and Israel’s insistence on inspecting every truck, aid groups said.
The signs of despair become more and more apparent as time goes on. Gazans have resorted to eating leaves and animal feed, and Gaza health authorities reported this week that some children had died of malnutrition.
President Biden had said on Friday that the United States would begin airdropping humanitarian aid supplies into Gaza, working with Jordan, which has been at the forefront of such efforts recently, and other allies.
But the plan drew immediate criticism from international aid groups who said it would be ineffective and distract from more substantive measures, such as pushing Israel to lift its siege of Gaza.
“Airdrops do not and cannot replace humanitarian access,” the International Rescue Committee, a New York-based aid group, said in a statement on Saturday. “Airdrops are not the solution to alleviate this pain and divert time and effort from proven solutions to help at scale.”
Egypt, France, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have participated in airdrops of aid to Gaza, but experts say they are ineffective, expensive and cannot deliver enough aid to prevent starvation. Given the disadvantages, as well as the risks to people on the ground, airdrops are usually a last resort.
The United States and other countries should instead focus their efforts on “ensuring that Israel lifts the siege of Gaza” and persuading Israel to reopen border crossings to allow the unhindered flow of fuel, food and of medical supplies, the International Rescue Committee said.
As hunger deepens across Gaza, United Nations officials have warned that famine is imminent. Categorizing a food crisis as a famine is a technical process that requires analysis by food insecurity experts.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, known as IPC, which is controlled by the United Nations and major aid agencies, three conditions must be met before a food shortage can be declared a famine: at least 20 percent of households face extreme food shortages; at least 30 percent of children suffering from acute malnutrition and at least two adults or four children for every 10,000 people dying every day from hunger or malnutrition-related diseases.
The IPC has been selective in declaring famines, identifying only two since its inception in 2004: in Somalia in 2011 and in South Sudan in 2017. In Somalia, more than 100,000 people died before a famine was officially declared.
Regardless of its technical classification, the situation in Gaza, especially in the north, is dire. Two weeks ago, UNICEF said one in six children in northern Gaza was severely malnourished. Gaza’s health ministry announced on Wednesday that at least six children died in the area from dehydration and malnutrition.
Arif Husain, the chief economist of the World Food Programme. he said his aim was to improve conditions before the famine began.
“To me, what’s important is to basically say, ‘Look, technically we haven’t met the conditions of a famine, and frankly we don’t want to meet those conditions,'” he said. “So please help, and please help now.”
Gaya Gupta, Vivian Nereim, Michael Crowley, Eric Schmidt and Erica L. Green contributed to the report.
