Israel decided to begin to allow humanitarian aid back into the Gaza Strip on May 18. This came almost two and a half months after the state decided to prevent aid from entering Gaza when the first phase of a ceasefire deal ended on March 1. It also came two months after Israel renewed military operations in Gaza on March 18.
Israeli leaders had talked tough about the humanitarian aid issue. Back on May 4, the Security Cabinet had decided on a new military offensive that would re-conquer Gaza for the long term, and some Israeli political leaders vowed to destroy swaths of Gaza. As part of the new campaign, Gazans were supposed to be able to move to southern Gaza to a Hamas-free area to receive aid.
Politicians also talked about resettling large numbers of Gazans abroad.
The issue of humanitarian aid has become more acute recently. US Ambassador Mike Huckabee held a press conference on May 9 focused on the issue of a new US-led initiative to provide aid. US pressure was clearly increasing, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed concerns about the aid stoppage.
The new vision from Washington was that aid would be distributed at various points in southern Gaza and that private security contractors would help enable this. The IDF would be on some distant perimeter but not actively involved in distributing the aid.
Israel’s leadership gives various reasons for why the aid is entering Gaza again
The plan appeared complex, but the contractors began to arrive by May 18.
This led to Israel’s sudden decision to enable aid again. It happened as the new operation envisioned on May 4 also took shape.
Operation Gideon’s Chariots is supposed to see the IDF operate throughout Gaza and take over the entire Strip. Meanwhile, officials said that the provision of aid to Gaza would now be temporary until the southern distribution centers are operational. That may take a week or longer, the sources said on May 18.
Israel’s leadership provides various reasons for why the aid is entering Gaza again. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar says that this means Israel can continue its war with support from friendly countries. Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said that not letting aid in would “endanger the continued operation to defeat Hamas.”
The resumption of aid comes amid many quickly shifting changes. There were talks in Doha about a possible deal, which didn’t seem to lead anywhere. The IDF is also working now to divide Gaza into three sealed zones, according to a report from Ynet. This will include areas in central Gaza, Gaza city, and southern Gaza. It also appears increasingly likely that Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar was killed in an IAF airstrike on May 14.
The issue with the cut-off and current resumption of aid via Israel is that it was never clear what the cutting of aid was intended to achieve. If the goal was to defeat or pressure Hamas, it’s not clear that it succeeded. Hamas has never agreed to a hostage deal with Israel solely because of humanitarian or military pressure.
Instead, most deals have been due to US pressure. The US helped get former hostage Edan Alexander out of Gaza on May 13. It was the coming to office of US President Donald Trump that enabled the hostage deal in January.
The IDF spent all of 2024 using military pressure against Hamas, and Hamas never changed its bargaining position. In fact, the deal agreed to in January 2025 was basically the same one Hamas had offered for most of the year, according to reports. It’s not clear that the military campaign in Gaza ever took advantage of events to increase or slow its tempo.
For instance, when Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar was killed, the IDF didn’t change its tactics at all, it continued the slow process of going into areas and leaving and repeating the process. In many cases in Gaza, the IDF fought over the same neighborhood several times. The IDF is once again entering areas in northern Gaza, for instance, that it had already taken three or four times. None of this has led to Hamas giving up. When it came time to freeing the hostages, talks never appeared to achieve results without US pressure. Generally, the US has had to pressure Israel to take the deal.
When Mohammed Sinwar – the leader of Hamas since his brother, Yahya, was killed in mid-October 2024 – the IDF hasn’t changed its tactics either. It has kept up a slowly moving campaign. There has been linkage between the humanitarian cut-off and the tempo of the campaign. For instance, aid was cut off in early March, but two weeks went by without a new offensive. Then, the offensive didn’t take over much territory.
When you cut off aid, it starts a clock. Israel’s leaders say they knew that cutting off aid could lead to a hunger crisis that would jeopardize continued fighting in Gaza. Yet, they didn’t start a clock and push the IDF to move faster. Instead, aid was cut off, and Israel waited from March 1 to May 4 to decide what to do.
By the time Gideon’s Chariot’s began on March 17, the aid was already being turned back on because of the looming hunger crisis. The result of the aid returning to Gaza will be that there will be less incentive for Gazans to go south to what is supposed to be a new aid distribution zone. It’s not even clear if they will be able to go south, adding increased complexity.
The days when Israel fought fast wars and put a priority on speed, such as in 1967, no longer exist. That being said, it’s clear that using an aid cut-off as part of a tactic or strategy requires a Clausewitz-like thought process about how it dovetails with the goals of the war. Otherwise, it’s just turning aid on and off with no real results.
There was no sense back in March that when the aid was cut off, Israel would have two months to do something in Gaza. Instead, Hamas ran out the clock by waiting – as it has done since December 2023.
When the first ceasefire deal collapsed on December 1, Israeli officials believed that military pressure would achieve more deals. However, that never happened.
In fact, the IDF reduced the tempo of operations and, by late February, there was a hunger crisis in Gaza. Aid was mostly cut off to northern Gaza at that time. This led to the so-called “flour massacre” when Gazans rushed aid trucks and dozens died from being trampled. Hamas accused the IDF of committing a massacre, but the video of the incident does not show the IDF opening fire.
This, in turn, led the Biden administration to send the floating pier to Gaza, an arduous disaster that took two months to be attached and then barely functioned and had to be shut down after numerous Americans were injured in the process.
Meanwhile, the IDF opened a new aid route to northern Gaza called Erez West, making the entire issue of the pier unnecessary. Another gate called 96 enabled trucks to enter as well. The IDF had built a compound near the floating pier that was completely unnecessary.
Instead of learning the lessons from the aid cycle crisis that unfolded from December 2023 to June 2024, Israel entered the same cycle in March 2025. It’s plausible that part of the reason for this was the perception that the Trump administration would let Israel do whatever it wanted in Gaza.Officials have spoken about “hell breaks loose” and “gates of hell” in terms of the operation. However, the reality is that it has been, so far, the same slow-moving operation as in 2024
The embrace of the so-called “Trump plan” to re-settle Gazans has likely led to a belief that there exists some magic wand to move a million people out of Gaza.
However, as with the aid issue, no actual planning appears to be taking place to accomplish what is an incredibly complex task.
This leads Israel to continually lurch from crisis to crisis and be surprised at the fact that a friendly administration in the US will not accept a hunger crisis in Gaza.
The concept of “continuing” the war has become a kind of totem now, an end to a means. The war goes on because it needs to go on. Aid returns to Gaza because there was no plan for what would happen once aid was cut off.