The United Nations has received authorization from Israel to allow approximately 100 additional humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza.
“We have requested and received approval for more trucks to enter today—many more than were approved yesterday,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office, said at a press briefing in Geneva. When asked for specifics, he said the number was “around 100.”
So far, following an 11-week Israeli blockade, Israel approved nine aid trucks to enter Gaza on Monday via the Kerem Shalom crossing. However, Laerke said that only five of those trucks actually made it into Gaza.
Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher on Monday welcomed the temporary resumption of “limited aid delivery into Gaza, following 11 weeks of complete blockade, and amid a spike in the military offensive,” according to a United Nations spokesperson speaking to journalists in New York.
Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the Secretary-General, said that nine aid trucks were cleared to enter via the Kerem Shalom crossing and quoted Fletcher as saying the delivery is “a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed,” stressing that “significantly more aid must be allowed into Gaza, starting tomorrow morning.”
Fletcher said the UN had received reassurances that its humanitarian efforts would be facilitated through existing, proven mechanisms, and emphasized the importance of ensuring aid reaches those most in need while minimizing the risk of theft by Hamas or other armed groups.
According to Dujarric, Fletcher also urged Israeli authorities to open at least two crossings—one in the north and one in the south—and to simplify and speed up procedures, remove any quotas, lift internal access restrictions, refrain from conducting attacks during delivery times and in delivery zones, and enable the UN to address the vast humanitarian needs across Gaza.
In other words, take every possible step to guarantee Hamas’s access to the aid trucks, making sure its gangsters are able to resell the goods at exorbitant rates so they can recruit fresh terrorists to kill more Jews.
גם בשעה זו: מחדל משאיות הסיוע ממשיך כרגיל. מכאן, זה מגיע הישר למרצחי החמאס שמחזיקים בחטופים שלנו. שתפו>> pic.twitter.com/TfiuHvh3V7
— תנועת צו 9- בשירות העם (@9_tzav) May 20, 2025
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced to the political-security cabinet on Tuesday the introduction of humanitarian aid to Gaza, under American pressure to prevent a hunger crisis in the Strip.
On Monday, the Tzav 9 (Order 9) movement called on the public to block the aid trucks en route to Gaza, as it has done in previous instances.
“With a decision that has a flag red with the blood of our sons and daughters flying above it, the cabinet decided to renew aid and supplies to the brutal murderers who slaughtered, raped, beheaded, and murdered us,” the group said in a statement. “The crime of the death trucks to Hamas over many months has cost us the best of these people. We will not provide comfort and aid to Hamas until the last of the kidnapped is here.”
The movement called on its supporters to take action: “We can no longer stand by. Victory and hope depend solely on us. This time, we will not let this happen. Come with us to block the Hamas trucks, return the kidnapped, protect the soldiers, protect the home.”
Families of hostages from the Tikvah Forum also voiced strong criticism of the renewed delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, while nothing is known about the condition of their loved ones, and they haven’t even been graced with a visit from the Red Cross since they were taken captive on October 7, 2023.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded to the backlash, saying the aid would be strictly limited: “The citizens of Gaza will receive a pita and a plate of food, and that’s it,” he said, emphasizing that the assistance would not reach Hamas. “This will allow the citizens to eat, help our friends around the world continue providing us with an international umbrella of protection against the Security Council and the Hague Tribunal, and enable us to keep fighting—God willing—until victory.”
Smotrich insisted that claims of aid reaching Hamas were false. “No aid went to Hamas. Period. Anyone who says otherwise is simply lying, and I don’t know what their motive is,” he stated. “For two and a half months, we didn’t send humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and that created significant pressure on Hamas, which is a good thing. But even pressure needs to be managed so it doesn’t explode in our faces.”
Although I’m an ardent supporter of Bezalel Smotrich, I harbor no illusions: Hamas will almost certainly appropriate at least part of the aid. That’s not speculation; Major General Ghasan Alyan—Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories—has already warned cabinet ministers that some humanitarian supplies are likely to fall into Hamas’s hands.
