UN data shows less than 8% of WFP trucks made it to destination in Gaza

28/7/2025 5:55

The United Nations

food aid agency needs quick approvals by Israel for its trucks

to move into Gaza if it is to take advantage of Israel's planned

humanitarian pauses in fighting, a senior World Food Programme

official said on Sunday.

Facing growing global condemnation as the World Health

Organization said mass starvation had taken hold in Gaza, Israel

said on Sunday it would halt military operations for 10 hours a

day in parts of the enclave and allow new aid corridors.



"We need not just words, but we need action there. We need

to have really fast clearances and approvals," Ross Smith, WFP

director of emergencies, told Reuters on Sunday. "If the waiting

times are going to continue to be 10 hours, then we won't be

able to take advantage of these pauses."

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not

immediately respond to a request for comment.



Since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade on Gaza on May 19

and allowed the U.N.-led humanitarian operation to resume

limited deliveries, a key U.N. complaint has been lengthy delays

by Israel in allowing convoys to leave the crossing points to

transport aid to warehouses and distribution points inside

Gaza.



U.N. data shows that only less than 8% of 1,718 WFP trucks

made it to their destination within Gaza in the nearly ten weeks

since Israel lifted its blockade. The rest were looted by

"either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed

actors during transit," according to the U.N. data.



Israel requires the U.N. and other groups to offload their

aid at the crossing point and then send trucks from within Gaza

to collect it and transport it within the war-torn enclave,

where some 2.1 million people remain.



"Everybody can see them driving in, and so they know that

food is about to be loaded on them, and they start to wait and

crowd," said Smith, adding that some convoys can wait up to 20

hours before Israel gives them the green light to enter Gaza.



"If they are sitting there for 10 hours, loading and

waiting, then at that point you have 10,000 people crowding

outside," he said.



Israel controls all access to Gaza and says it allows enough

food aid into the enclave, where it has been at war with

Palestinian militants Hamas for nearly 22-months. It accuses

Hamas of stealing aid, which the militants deny. The U.N. says

it has not seen evidence of mass aid diversion in Gaza by Hamas.



Jordan and the United Arab Emirates parachuted 25 tons of

aid into the Gaza Strip on Sunday in their first airdrop in

months, a Jordanian official source said, adding that the air

drops were not a substitute for delivery by land.



Smith said air dropping aid was "purely symbolic at the very

best."



The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7, 2023, when

Palestinian militants Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern

Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israel's military campaign has killed nearly 60,000

Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.