A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Since the March 2025 breakdown of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, conditions have worsened dramatically, and the potential for widespread starvation is real. Thousands of containers with food, medical supplies, and shelter materials remain stranded at border crossings on both sides, awaiting Israeli clearance to enter Gaza and conditions for safe passage free from seizure by desperate Gazan civilians, Hamas or gang attacks within the enclave. At least several hundred truckloads of food aid must enter daily to avert a wider catastrophe.

Many parties bear responsibility for this crisis. First and foremost, Hamas launched a war with the brutal October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel; because Hamas fighters live and fight in civilian areas and in tunnels running underneath them, Hamas invited an Israeli response that would put millions of people at risk. Gazan civilians have suffered hardships and deaths at an unfathomable scale since the start of the war, and outside organizations attempting to meet humanitarian needs are struggling to deliver aid in the midst of intense combat and disorder in a dense urban environment.

From the very beginning, U.S. President Joe Biden was steadfast in his support of Israel’s right to defend itself in Gaza and defeat Hamas as a military threat. But his administration, in which we both served, also made clear that Israel was responsible for exercising care to limit civilian harm and to ensure access to food, medical care, and shelter. As the U.S. ambassador to Israel (Lew) and as the U.S. special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues (Satterfield), we communicated these dual positions in our daily engagements with Israeli leaders at all levels. And we pressed all parties to coordinate so that enough lifesaving supplies reached Gaza, even if inconsistently.

There was still too much scarcity and precarity, and for months following the October 2023 attacks on Israel, some commentators labeled the situation in Gaza a famine. But although the results of our work never satisfied us, much less our critics, in reality the efforts we led in the Biden administration to keep Gaza open for humanitarian relief prevented famine. The fact remains that through the first year and a half of relentless war, Gazans did not face mass starvation because humanitarian assistance was reaching them.

During our tenure, the United States deployed officials from multiple agencies that had the tools, leverage, and determination to improve the situation, and we were committed to doing so despite the often adverse circumstances. In March, when the cease-fire broke down, everything changed.

Under the terms of the cease-fire, which was struck in the last days of the Biden administration in January 2025, Israel had allowed a surge of supplies into Gaza. But when the cease-fire collapsed, Israel closed all humanitarian access in an effort to pressure Hamas to agree to the terms of a hostage deal. It was the first time it had blocked all aid to Gaza since late October 2023. The total blockade continued for 11 weeks, and during this critical time, the Trump administration stood back as remaining food supplies diminished and suffering increased, until it became clear to the president that the crisis had grown to politically unacceptable levels and was triggering outrage even in the MAGA base.

Then, when Israel finally did allow a limited amount of aid to enter, it changed the primary food distribution model, mostly bypassing the United Nations and other established humanitarian organizations in favor of a brand-new operation called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Although the UN continued to operate, it experienced significant operational difficulties and restrictions. The nearly 20,000 tons of monthly food aid that got through from March to July was about a third of what the World Food Program deemed necessary. The scenes of acute hunger and potential starvation that have emerged from Gaza in recent weeks reveal a frightening deterioration.

When aid was flowing before the cease-fire, it did not arrive by chance. It came one border crossing and one truck convoy at a time, and it required overcoming political and battlefield challenges every step of the way. As the world watches the crisis unfolding today and demands a solution, it is important to learn from what worked and what did not, and to remember that it falls to all parties to find a solution. The stakes are too high to allow the delivery of critical assistance to be derailed by Israeli political dynamics, obstruction by Hamas or armed Gazan gangs, or infighting among aid providers. And Washington must remember that it uniquely has the tools and leverage to avert an escalating catastrophe.

After the October 7 attacks, the people of Israel were in shock, traumatized both by Hamas’s brutality and by the failure of their government to protect their fellow citizens. Immediately following the attacks, Israel responded forcefully, imposing a complete blockade on Gaza that prevented any humanitarian aid from entering via land routes. The Israeli cabinet decided that, as a matter of policy, there would be no commercial or civilian contact between Israel and Gaza. In those early days, it was common to hear Israelis use the phrase “not a drop of water, not a drop of milk, and not a drop of fuel will go from Israel to Gaza.” In the raw trauma after October 7, this sentiment was understandable but unsustainable with growing needs.

From the beginning, U.S. officials made clear that Israeli leaders needed to find a way for lifesaving supplies to get in. We underscored that doing so was unquestionably a moral obligation. We also argued that it was a strategic necessity, in that it would give Israel the time to plan and accomplish its military mission of eliminating Hamas as a threat while maintaining the support it needed from its allies, in particular the United States.

On October 18, 2023, Biden visited Israel to demonstrate U.S. solidarity in the aftermath of the attacks but also to persuade the government to allow trucks to cross into the Gazan city of Rafah from Egypt. He told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet privately—and then the Israeli people publicly—that the United States “had Israel’s back” and that Israel had not just a right but also an obligation to ensure that Hamas could never again act as it did on October 7. But Biden also emphasized that the military campaign against Hamas would be complex and warned explicitly that the ability of the United States to support the operation would depend on Israel’s initiating and sustaining an effective “humanitarian campaign.” Without such a campaign, the president stressed,........

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