Among the many aims of the October 8 cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, flooding Gaza with humanitarian assistance ought to be one of the most achievable. According to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, “full aid” would be “immediately sent into the Gaza Strip” through neutral international institutions “without interference from the two parties.” The very first phase of the agreement called for 600 aid trucks per day to enter the territory unimpeded; in contrast to disarming Hamas or determining Gaza’s long-term security and governance arrangements, implementing such a measure is theoretically straightforward. On paper, after two years of horrific deprivation, serial displacement, and growing famine, it would finally allow the people of Gaza to begin receiving adequate supplies of food, medicine, and other vital necessities.

Already in its first two weeks, however, the deal has fallen well short of these goals. Just days after the agreement had been reached, Israel announced that it was delaying the reopening of the crucial Rafah crossing—a primary conduit of aid from Egypt—and cutting in half the number of aid trucks it was supposed to allow in, on the grounds that Hamas had been too slow in returning the bodies of deceased hostages. (The International Committee of the Red Cross has said that returning the deceased hostages is a “massive challenge” that requires special equipment and could take weeks.) A few days later, the Israeli government threatened a full shutdown of aid flows in response to what it described as a Hamas “attack” on an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer in Rafah; it backed down under U.S. pressure once it became public that the IDF bulldozer had likely hit unexploded ordinance. Many of the largest nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are frozen due to new Israeli registration demands. And because of the continued closure of crossings in the north, much of northern Gaza remains effectively out of reach of aid deliveries, despite cleared roads to those crossings. The result of these actions is that most aid remains blocked, despite the terms of the deal. After an initial surge when the cease-fire was signed, aid flows remain far short of the minimum needed to halt the famine; as of October 21, the World Food Program reports that it has been able to bring in less than half the required volume of food aid.

This points to a problem that has been present throughout the war and even long before. Although international law requires humanitarian access to civilians regardless of the state of conflict between the warring parties, aid to Gaza has continually been used as a bargaining chip between Israel and Hamas or restricted or blocked by Israel for capricious reasons. Moreover, by basing cease-fire deals on an aid-for-hostages framework, negotiators have implicitly given validation to Israel’s strategy of using the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza as a way to gain leverage or impose pressure on Hamas. The pattern of obstruction extends to the control and oversight of aid delivery itself. Since the early months of the war, Israel has refused to work with UNWRA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which remains the largest and most capable relief actor in Gaza and a critical support to both Palestinian and international aid groups. And since the deal, Israel has refused to reengage with the agency, hampering large-scale relief efforts.

Despite these daunting challenges, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza can still be reversed. The United States has deployed a new Pentagon-led civil-military coordination center, the CMCC, which has oversight over the aid scale-up. If this entity takes strong leadership and acts as a bulwark against Israeli aid obstruction, it could prove instrumental. But to be effective on the ground, the coordination center must support rather than seek to supplant the UN-led aid coordination system. And the guarantors of the deal—including regional powers and European countries alongside the United States—will need to work closely to support the UN aid infrastructure, ensure that the deal’s humanitarian elements are upheld, and be ready to rapidly apply U.S. and international pressure in the face of any backsliding or interference. Given the many lives at stake if humanitarian aid falters, getting this right must be as much of a priority for the deal’s guarantors as the security elements of the agreement.........

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