IDF announces new moves to deliver aid to Gaza

The IDF added that it was prepared to expand the scale of its humanitarian response in the coastal enclave “as required.”

As part of this, in its first-ever airdrop into Gaza on Saturday night, the Israeli Air Force delivered seven pallets of aid – including flour, sugar and canned food—in coordination with international organizations.

The IDF also confirmed that, “in line with a decision by the political echelon,” Israel had reconnected the Kela power line to Gaza’s seawater desalination plant, four months after cutting electricity to the Strip.

“This is expected to supply approximately 20,000 cubic meters of water per day, up from the 2,000 cubic meters supplied until now, to serve about 900,000 residents in the area,” according to Israel’s military.

The IDF noted that over the past week alone, more than 250 aid trucks had been unloaded, which it said joined “hundreds of trucks waiting at the crossings to be collected by the U.N. and international organisations.”

“Additionally, approximately 600 trucks have been distributed by the UN and international organisations,” it said. “The IDF, through COGAT, will continue coordinating with international organisations to collect the contents of hundreds of trucks that have not yet been collected.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog welcomed the decision to expand the humanitarian efforts in the Strip in a statement this morning.

The head of state called on the United Nations and international NGOs “to do their part and ensure that aid reaches those in need without delay – as Israel has demanded for some time.”

“It is unacceptable that aid delivered to Gaza remains undistributed or is hijacked by Hamas, even as they falsely accuse Israel of blocking it. The world must stand firm against terror – and work relentlessly to bring all our hostages home immediately,” according to Herzog.

Meanwhile, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has opposed humanitarian aid to Gaza as long as Hamas refuses to release the hostages, slammed the move as a surrender to the terrorist group.

“I was informed by a source in the Prime Minister’s Office that during Shabbat, a security consultation took place without me (the official claim: ‘so as not to desecrate Shabbat’ – despite them knowing full well that as the national security minister, I am available on Shabbat for any important event or security consultation), during which it was decided to increase the amounts of ‘humanitarian’ aid entering Gaza,” he said.

“I told the source from the PMO that this amounts to surrendering to Hamas’s false campaign, which endangers IDF soldiers, and that this surrender is all the more serious given that the prime minister said on Friday that we are considering alternative ways to free the hostages.”

“It turns out that the ‘alternative way’ is to surrender to Hamas and its false campaigns, and to increase humanitarian aid that reaches them directly,” the right-wing minister stated. “This path brings us further from the hostages’ return and, more importantly, from total victory.”

Israel and the United States in May installed a new organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to handle food aid deliveries so that it directly reaches Palestinians civilians and bypasses Hamas terrorists.

On Friday, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit released extensive footage showing the hundreds of trucks on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing waiting to be picked up by the United Nations.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee shared photos on X of the aid waiting to be distributed, saying that there is “enough food to feed all of Gaza but it sits rotting! U.N. is a tool of Hamas! U.S.-based [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] is actually delivering food FOR FREE and SAFELY. U.N. food is either looted by Hamas or rots in the sun!”