ISRAEL pressed ahead Tuesday with its new military offensive in Gaza despite mounting international criticism, launching airstrikes that health officials said killed at least 85 Palestinians. Israeli officials said they also allowed in dozens more trucks carrying aid.
AP reported that two days after aid began entering Gaza, the desperately needed new supplies have not yet reached people in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months, according to the United Nations. Experts have warned that many of Gaza’s 2 million residents are at high risk of famine.
Under pressure, Israel agreed this week to allow a “minimal” amount of aid into the Palestinian territory after preventing the entry of food, medicine and fuel in an attempt to pressure the Hamas militant group. U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that although the aid has entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points where it is most needed, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body that oversees humanitarian aid, said five trucks entered Monday and 93 trucks entered Tuesday. But Dujarric said the U.N. confirmed only a few dozen trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday.
The aid included flour for bakeries, food for soup kitchens, baby food and medical supplies. The U.N. humanitarian agency said it is prioritizing baby formula in the first shipments.
But none of that aid actually reached Palestinians, according to the U.N. Dujarric described the new security process for getting aid cleared to warehouses as “long, complex, complicated and dangerous.” He said Israeli military requirements for aid workers to unload and reload the trucks are hindering efforts to distribute the aid. COGAT did not immediately comment on the new procedures.
The United Nations humanitarian agency received approval for about 100 trucks to enter Gaza, spokesman Jens Laerke said, which is far less than the 600 that entered daily during the latest ceasefire that Israel ended in March. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said dozens are expected to enter each day.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he decided to let in limited aid after pressure from allies, who told him they couldn’t support Israel while devastating images of starvation were coming out of Gaza.
Israeli politician criticizes killing ‘babies as a hobby’
Criticism against Israel’s conduct in Gaza also came at home. A leader of center-left politics said Tuesday that Israel was becoming an “outcast among nations” because of the government’s approach to the war.
“A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set for itself the goals of expelling a population,” Yair Golan, a retired general and leader of the opposition Democrats party, told Reshet Bet radio.
His comments were rare criticism from inside Israel of its wartime conduct in Gaza. Many Israelis have criticized Netanyahu throughout the war, but that has been mostly limited to what opponents argue are his political motives to continue the war. Criticism over the war’s toll on Palestinian civilians has been almost unheard.
Netanyahu swiftly slammed Golan’s remarks, calling them “wild incitement” against Israeli soldiers and accusing him of echoing “disgraceful antisemitic blood libels” against the country.
Golan, who donned his uniform during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack to join the fight against the militants, previously sparked an uproar when as deputy military chief of staff in 2016, he likened the atmosphere in Israel to that of Nazi-era Germany. - May 21, 2025
