Israel Says It’s Halving Aid Into Gaza After Receiving Last 20 Living Captives

Israel is going to halve the amount of aid that it will allow into Gaza under the ceasefire agreement, aid groups say — a move Israel has attempted to justify by blaming Hamas for supposedly violating the deal that Palestinians have said Israel is working to sabotage.

UN officials said they were notified by the Israeli military that it would only allow 300 aid trucks into the famine-stricken territory a day — half of the 600 trucks per day in the agreement. The Rafah crossing, formerly the largest border crossing for humanitarian aid, will remain closed indefinitely, Israeli officials said.

Israel also said that it would continue to bar the entry of fuel or gas into Gaza, other than what is needed for humanitarian operations.

The decision comes after Israel has already received all 20 remaining living Israeli captives on Monday, bringing an end to Israel’s longtime call for Hamas to release them.

This announcement means that millions of Palestinians will continue to be deprived of vital needs as humanitarian groups have said that 500 to 600 aid trucks need to enter Gaza daily in order to sustain the needs of the population.

Israel has already been majorly lagging in the amount of aid it’s allowing in. Aid groups have said that they have yet to see the major scale up of aid promised under the agreement, while Israel is still barring the entry of supplies stored by UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the largest aid agency for Gaza.

Indeed, during the initial 72 hours of the ceasefire, Israel was supposed to allow in 400 trucks per day — but Gaza’s Government Media Office reported that only 173 aid trucks entered on Sunday. Israel claimed that 817 trucks entered.

The agency of Israel’s military responsible for overseeing civilians, COGAT, said that the decision was made in response to a supposed ceasefire violation by Hamas. On Monday, Hamas released four of 28 bodies of deceased captives, and is slated to release four to six more on Tuesday.

The Associated Press noted that Israeli officials knew there would likely be a delay in receiving the captives’ remains. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has aided in the exchange of remains between Israel and Palestinian forces, said that it may take days or weeks to fully recover the remains, and that the process is “a massive challenge.”

Amid the genocide, Israel destroyed at least 70 percent of structures in Gaza, and left behind massive piles of debris. It also barred all heavy machinery that could help clear rubble; officials say there are at least 6,000 Palestinians, if not far more, who are believed to be buried under the rubble after Israeli strikes.

The ban on heavy equipment may also explain why Hamas may have trouble locating Israeli captives’ remains.

“Israeli occupation officials threaten to resume the genocide in Gaza as the Palestinian resistance failed to find bodies of deceased Israeli prisoners,” wrote Gaza journalist Motasem A Dalloul. “The reason that they have not been found is Israel which insists on not allowing the entry of heavy equipment in order to remove the rubble, open streets and look for the bodies.”

Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesperson said on Tuesday that over 250 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble so far, even amid challenges due to the lack of heavy equipment.

“More than 10,000 people are under the rubble, and we don’t have the means to reach them,” the spokesperson said, per Al Jazeera.

Israel is supposed to release the remains of 15 Palestinians’ bodies in exchange for every Israeli captive’s body released by Hamas, totalling 360 Palestinians. Gaza’s Nasser Hospital said that it has received the first 45 Palestinians’ bodies, with some of them showing signs of torture prior to their death.