Israel plans to radically modify the way in which humanitarian aid is distributed in the Gaza Strip when it begins to authorize the Enclave assistance in the coming weeks after what has been a freeze of almost two and a half months, an Israeli and Arab officer familiar with the case said the Times of Israel this week.
The plan is to move away from wholesale distribution and assistance storage and rather have international organizations and private safety entrepreneurs, put food boxes to the families of Gazan, according to the officials.
Each family will have a designated representative responsible for reaching an Israeli defense forces security area in the south of Gaza where help will be distributed after crossing several inspection cycles. Each box will have enough food to last several days until family representatives are authorized to return to the security zone to receive another package, said those responsible, adding that Israel thinks that this method will make Hamas more difficult for Hamas to divert aid to its combatants.
The FDI will not be directly involved in the distribution of the aid, in the middle of the decline of the chief of staff, General Eyal Zamir; But the troops will be responsible for providing an external security layer to private entrepreneurs and international organizations distributing aid, officials said.
One of the main companies that should be involved in the plan is the discharge of an American national security consulting company called Orbis, whose leaders have links with strategic affairs Ron Dermer, said the Israeli official. The company could not be attached to comment.
There is no exact calendar at the time the new system is set up, but the FDIs believe that it has only several weeks before a major humanitarian crisis, said the Israeli official.
Hamas agents seen as aid trucks arrive in Rafah, Gaza Strip, January 21, 2025. (Jehad Alshrafi / AP)
Israel has ceased to authorize Gaza aid on March 2 after the conclusion of the first phase of a cease-fire and release contract. Jerusalem argued that Hamas had diverted a large part of the aid that entered the 6 -week truce, but that the 650 trucks per day were sufficient to feed the population for an extended period.
Israel engaged in negotiations aimed at an extension of ceasefire during which he is willing to allow the resumption of aid in the band in exchange for the publication of the hostages, but these talks have not yet reached a breakthrough.
The new aid distribution plan has not received the final approval of the government, but has the support of a large part of the security establishment as well as key figures from the inner circle of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli official said.
The Arab official informed of the plan was skeptical about his ability to successfully implement Hamas of the aid distribution process, noting that representatives responsible for collecting food boxes for their families will face a dangerous and potentially long trek in the humanitarian zone.
“They will be like sitting ducks,” warned the Arab official.
He added that the plan also seemed to limit the quantity of food that each family will receive in the bare minimum necessary for survival. “It is as if they had the calories of a population that has already been hungry for months.”
The Palestinians receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, in Jabalia, Gaza Strip, April 1, 2025. (AP Photo / Jehad Alshrafi)
The Arab official has also expressed skepticism that the plan could be reproduced on a large scale for the entire population of Gaza, even if it continues to be tight in increasingly small areas in the decimated band.
“This seems to be part of the slow duration towards a permanent Israeli occupation of Gaza where the FDI will eventually be those directly responsible for the distribution of aid,” said the Arab official.
The Arab official has argued that a better alternative for the distribution of aid would be to employ agents linked to the Palestinian Authority – an idea that Israel rejected while the AP linked its cooperation to Jerusalem establishing a political horizon for Ramallah.
The Arab official said that the granting of a foot in PA would also unlock the additional support of the Arab countries which have expressed their will to play a role in the post-war management of Gaza in a way that isolates Hamas.
The FDI in recent days has recommended that the Israeli government has approved the resumption of humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, regardless of the Hamas terrorist group, in order to avoid famine among the Palestinian civilian population, according to military officials who informed reporters earlier this week.
The FDIs have clearly indicated at the political level that the resumption of the entry of aid will soon be necessary to avoid violations of international law and future legal problems for commanders who participate in the military operation.
FDI’s chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Eyal Zamir (Center), is seen in the Shejaiya district of Gaza City, April 15, 2025. (Israeli defense forces)
“The FDI recommendation is to create aid distribution areas, to use international organizations and companies, while ensuring them during distribution and preventing aid from reaching Hamas,” said a military official during the briefing.
However, the Israeli military official said that he “acts in accordance with the advice of the political level concerning the distribution of aid”.
Delivery for aid to Gaza was part of Israeli efforts to put Hamas in a hostage agreement. At the same time, the FDIs resumed its offensive in Gaza, entering large sections of the strip territory and killing around 400 members of terrorist groups, including dozens of senior officials from the Politburo and the Hamas military wing.
The military official acknowledged that “despite the fact that military pressure is exerted, the terrorist organization of Hamas remains little disposed (to accept an agreement).”
Consequently, the military official said that the FDIs were preparing to call a large number of reserve troops in the coming period to “considerably” extend the offensive to Gaza by operating in new areas of the band.
TSAhal troops are seen in the Morag corridor area in the Southern Gaza Strip, April 21, 2025. (Emanuel Fabian / Times of Israel)
The soldiers said that the reservist call was being made only by “operational and operational interests”, in the midst of assembly letters signed by veterans calling for an agreement with an agreement with Hamas, even if this is at the cost of the end of the war.
The military leader said that the most important Mission of the FDI remains to return the 59 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza, of which about two dozen are presumed alive, while endeavoring from the reign of the terrorist group on the band was secondary, unlike the position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who declared Thursday that the victory of the war in the terrorist group, not the return of the hosts.
“The supreme mission to which the FSAL is business is our moral duty to return the hostages. The second mission is defeating Hamas. We are working to advance the two objectives, the return of the hostages being at the top (from the priority list),” said the military official.
More than 2,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed hostilities on March 18, on more than 52,400 killed since the war, he was launched by the assault on Hamas on October 7, 2023, according to the Ministry of Health controlled by Hamas.
The figures cannot be checked independently and are not distinguished between combatants and civilians. Israel says he killed some 20,000 combat fighters in January, and 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the Hamas.
The attack by Hamas has seen thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, whose body of a killed soldier fighting in the 2014 war there.
Israel’s toll in the offensive on the ground against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the strip is 414. The toll includes two police officers and two civil entrepreneurs from the Ministry of Defense.
