Israelis signal support for more Gaza aid routes

With humanitarian crisis worsening, pressure increases.

Israel’s military Thursday said it supported new initiatives to get humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, just hours after the military’s chief spokesperson said it was trying to “flood” the enclave with sorely needed aid.

Israel has endorsed three new aid efforts over the past week: a ship carrying food approaching the coast off Gaza; airdrops by foreign countries; and an initial convoy of six trucks crossing directly from Israel into northern Gaza, where aid agencies say hunger is severest, for the first time since Oct. 7.

The public signaling from Israeli officials follows increasingly urgent calls from the United States and other allies for Israel to do more to alleviate the humanitarian crisis wrought by its invasion. The United Nations has warned that parts of Gaza are on the brink of famine.

Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst and a columnist at Haaretz, said Israel is coming under pressure from all sides and images emerging from Gaza of emaciated, starving children may have been “a tipping point” for policymakers. “There’s a limit to how much opprobrium Israel is willing to take and stand behind and say we are in the right,” she said.

Aid organizations and U.N. officials say the new efforts are too small and inefficient to meet the enormous needs of Gaza civilians. They have argued it would be better for Israel to ease entry restrictions for trucks at established crossing points into the enclave and do more to speed the delivery of goods inside Gaza.

Airdrops are ineffective and largely symbolic, these groups say, able to deliver just a fraction of the food a truck convoy can haul. Setting up the infrastructure for aid deliveries by sea will be expensive and take time. U.S. officials have said it could be weeks before a floating pier for maritime aid is up and running.

“Air and sea is not a substitute for land, and nobody says otherwise,” Sigrid Kaag, U.N. humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, said last week.

But overland deliveries also face challenges critics say Israel needs to try to address.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has damaged the roads that aid trucks travel on. Civil order has broken down. Desperate Gaza civilians have looted and pulled food from trucks, and convoys have come under fire.

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