UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

The Israeli government has approved the entry of “basic” amounts of aid into Gaza following three months of total blockade that has significantly compounded the humanitarian crisis in the strip, coinciding with the start of Tel Aviv’s new military operation. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on 19 May that the flow of aid is being renewed “at the recommendation of the IDF and due to the operational need to enable the expansion of intense fighting to defeat Hamas.” Netanyahu’s office added that Israel “will allow the entry of a basic quantity of food for the population in order to prevent the development of a hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip,” given that such a crisis “would endanger the continued operation to defeat Hamas.”