A total of 170 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip on Monday through the Kerem Shalom Crossing, according to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
The shipments included food, medical supplies, and pharmaceutical drugs.
“We will continue to facilitate humanitarian aid into Gaza while making every effort to ensure that the aid does not reach the hands of Hamas,” COGAT said in a statement.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, Israel has facilitated the entry of approximately 1.35 million tons of food into the Gaza Strip via more than 63,000 trucks, according to official data. In addition, over 45,000 tons of medical supplies and more than 165,000 tons of shelter equipment have been delivered to the Palestinian enclave.
COGAT also pushed back against what it described as a “libelous lie” by Tom Fletcher, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, who claimed that 10,000 aid trucks were waiting to enter Gaza.
In a statement, COGAT rejected Fletcher’s claim, saying: “There aren’t 10,000 trucks waiting to go into Gaza. What there is are hundreds of trucks’ worth of aid the U.N. hasn’t picked up from the Gazan side over the last few days, after we gave you plenty of routes you can use to safely distribute the aid.”
“You are using a humanitarian difficulty and causing a worse one—one that isn’t serving your ‘humanitarian principles,’” the statement added.
Last week, the BBC corrected a claim by Fletcher that 14,000 infants in the Gaza Strip faced imminent death, clarifying that the figure actually refers to children at risk of severe malnutrition over the course of a full year.
Fletcher made the claim on BBC Radio 4‘s “Today” program, saying: “There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.”
By the time the correction surfaced, the false claim had already been cited by at least nine Members of Parliament in the House of Commons and amplified across U.K. and international media.
Meanwhile, the first of the U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s eight planned aid distribution centers in the Strip was opened on Monday, according to Hebrew media.
Three more centers will open gradually over the course of the week, and there is a plan to build four more centers in the future, according to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster.
Three of the first four are situated at the Morag Corridor in the southern Strip, with the remaining one being located just south of the Netzarim Corridor, which runs south of Gaza City.
Each distribution center is located within a secured compound, isolated by earthen berms, a logistic route for the entry of trucks, and an area to unload supplies, the report continued.
American contractor personnel will distribute food packages directly to Palestinian civilians, taking into account massive queues, with the Israel Defense Forces guarding the compound from afar, according to Kan.
The Israeli military said that each package contains sufficient food for five persons for five days, and that each distribution center will provide food for approximately 300,000 Gazans.
The foundation is part of a plan to circumvent the United Nations and to deliver aid to Gazans without supplies falling into the hands of Hamas.