The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warns of deceptive attempts by the Israeli authorities to mislead the world by declaring the resumption of humanitarian aid entry into the Gaza Strip after two months and a half of total closure of crossings and blocking entry of all types of relief into Gaza. PCHR emphasizes that this announcement does not indicate in any way Israel’s real intent to respond effectively to the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza; rather, it is a clear manipulative attempt to clean up its image before the international community and global public opinion.
According to PCHR’s monitoring, Israel allowed only a few tens of trucks to enter the Gaza Strip carrying food and medicines via Kerem Shalom crossing- this number does not even meet the bare minimum needs of the small part of the population in a time the Strip needs at least 600 daily trucks of aid and humanitarian supplies to meet its basic needs, according to the United Nations.1 Although the Israeli authorities claimed the entry of aid trucks, the indicators on the ground emphasize that the humanitarian organizations managed to bring 90 trucks into the Gaza Strip over the past days,2 while hundreds of thousands of tons of aid and supplies, including food, medicine and medical equipment, are still stuck on the other side of the crossings due to IOF’s blocking their entry and the logistical challenges facing the humanitarian organizations when delivering aid to warehouses inside Gaza.
While emphasizing the falsity of the Israeli claims, PCHR still believes that Israel is insisting on exploiting the Palestinian humanitarian suffering to serve its military and political goals, foremost among them covering up the crime of genocide it is committing against 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by imposing a strangulating siege, deliberate starvation, mass killings and forced displacement alongside the massive destruction of infrastructure and life essentials. This exploitation is clearly stated by the Israeli Prime Minister, who said that the entry of aid is part of “the operational need to enable the expansion of the military operation”3. This statement is an unequivocal admission of the use of food and medicine as weapons of war and a bargaining chip in the context of the systematic starvation of the Palestinian population. It is also a blatant violation of the international humanitarian law, particularly Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits use of relief as a weapon of war and obligates Israel, as an occupying power, to ensure the adequate and unconditional provision of food and essential supplies necessary for the survival of the population.
The IOF have temporarily allowed the entry of these limited quantities of aid into Gaza until the new aid distribution mechanism begins. Under this new mechanism, aid will be distributed by private companies in specific areas, primarily Rafah, and under the direct supervision of the IOF. This is considered a calculated attempt by the IOF to control the starvation process and use humanitarian aid as a tool to pressure Palestinians and forcibly push them toward those areas, as a prelude to turning the northern and central Gaza Strip into depopulated zones.
At the same time, the IOF have unprecedentedly intensified their attacks over the past days, as the scope of forced evacuation orders has expanded to include vast areas across both the northern and southern Gaza Strip. This escalation comes amid threats of a widescale military aggression intended to pave the way for the IOF to establish full control over the entire Gaza Strip. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to endure worsening humanitarian conditions for over ten weeks, following the complete closure of all crossings and the suspension of humanitarian aid entry since 02 March 2025. PCHR’s field researchers documented the IOF’s escalating and deliberate targeting of Gaza’s remaining basic infrastructure, including hospitals and healthcare centers. The IOF have also bombed field kitchens, food distribution centers, and humanitarian aid delivery points, which is clear evidence of a strategy aimed at dismantling the remaining relief facilities and leaving residents to face a slow death without any form of assistance.
In light of the above, PCHR affirms that the continued obstruction and weaponization of humanitarian aid by the IOF constitutes a blatant violation of the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel regarding the prevention of genocide in the Gaza Strip. These measures emphasize the vital need to prevent genocide by taking all effective steps and ensure the urgent and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid under United Nations supervision, free from any political or military interference.
PCHR emphasized that the IOF’s crime of starving Palestinians and depriving them of food and essential supplies not only constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions and their Protocols, but undoubtedly amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which criminalizes the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the intentional obstruction of humanitarian aid. Moreover, deliberately inflicting on the civilians conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction constitutes one of the elements of the crime of genocide, as defined in Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Therefore, PCHR reiterates its urgent call to the international community to take immediate and decisive action to stop the ongoing brutal genocide against the Palestinians, ensure respect for international humanitarian law, and implement strict measures to guarantee the full and unconditional entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. It also calls for the immediate and permanent lifting of the illegal imposed siege on the Gaza Strip, the provision of full protection for humanitarian and relief personnel, and enabling international organizations, foremost among them the United Nations, to supervise the aid distribution process and ensure its neutrality.
PCHR calls on the countries supporting Palestine to take urgent action to request the expansion of the provisional measures ordered by the ICJ in response to the case brought by South Africa against Israel, to document the IOF’s ongoing violations of these measures, and to pressure for the establishment of a permanent UN monitoring mechanism over the entry and distribution of aid under the Court’s jurisdiction, free from IOF control. It also demands that the States Parties to the ICC put an end to the culture of impunity, fulfill their legal obligations to prosecute and hold accountable the Israeli war criminals against whom arrest warrants have been issued and bring them to international justice wherever they may be found, and impose political, economic, and military sanctions Israel.
