Israel Says It Will Allow Food to Enter Gaza After Pressure From Allies

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his decision to resume food aid was the result of pressure from some of Israel’s international allies.

A boy scrapes leftovers from an empty pot after all the meals were distributed at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on May 14, 2025. Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

Israel will ease its blockade and allow limited amounts of food into Gaza as its military begins extensive ground operations in the territory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 18.

In a May 19 video statement posted on social media platform X, Netanyahu said his decision to resume food aid to the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza was the result of pressure from some of Israel’s allies.

Without mentioning specific countries, Netanyahu said Israel’s “greatest friends in the world,” including a number of senators, had told him: “We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you.”

He said the situation was approaching a “red line” and a “dangerous point.”

“Therefore to achieve victory, we need to somehow solve the problem,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu said the aid that would be let in would be minimal. He said Israel would control all of Gaza and therefore prevent Hamas from stealing the aid, something the terrorist group has been accused of doing in the past.

On May 18, the prime minister’s office said, “At the recommendation of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], and out of the operational need to enable the expansion of intense fighting to defeat Hamas, Israel will allow a basic amount of food for the population to ensure that a hunger crisis does not develop in the Gaza Strip.”

At the end of April, the U.N. World Food Programme stated that it had run out of food stocks in Gaza, and U.S. President Donald Trump said he had urged Netanyahu to allow food and medicine to be delivered.

During his May 14–16 visit to Turkey, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was troubled by the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Germany, France, and the UK had also called on Israel to allow the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

Tom Fletcher, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, on May 13 told the U.N. Security Council that no food, medicine, or water had entered the Gaza Strip for more than 10 weeks.

“We can save hundreds of thousands of survivors,“ he said. ”We have rigorous mechanisms to ensure our aid gets to civilians, and not to Hamas. But Israel denies us access, placing the objective of depopulating Gaza before the lives of civilians. It is bad enough that the blockade continues.”

On May 19, Eri Kaneko, a spokesperson for Fletcher, confirmed that the United Nations had been approached by Israeli authorities to “resume limited aid delivery.” She said discussions are ongoing about the logistics “given the conditions on the ground.”

Israel has refused to allow food, fuel, or medical supplies to enter Gaza since the beginning of March.

At the time the aid was cut off, a spokesman for Netanyahu pointed out that Israel had allowed in 4,200 food trucks per week, “enough for many, many months,” during the six-week cease-fire that ended on March 1.

Netanyahu said on May 13 that there was “no way” Israel would halt its war in the Gaza Strip, even if a deal is reached to release more hostages.

The conflict in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists crossed the border into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages back into the strip of territory they controlled.

Israel responded with air strikes and a ground offensive that the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza claims has killed at least 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children.

Israel has always maintained that, compared with many other armed conflicts, civilian casualties are low, despite Hamas that fighters have used the Palestinian civilian population as human shields.

Indirect talks are taking place between Israel and Hamas representatives in Qatar.

Netanyahu said the talks included discussions on a cease-fire and a hostage deal as well as an Israeli proposal to end the war if Hamas agrees to go into exile and the Gaza Strip is demilitarized.

Hamas has previously rejected the proposal.

IDF chief Eyal Zamir said the army would provide Israel’s leaders with the flexibility needed to reach a hostage deal.

Israel’s military says it has carried out air strikes on 670 Hamas targets in Gaza over the past week ahead of “Gideon’s Chariots,” its new ground operation aimed at gaining “operational control” of the northern and southern parts of the enclave.

The IDF said it had killed dozens of Hamas fighters.

The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza said 464 Palestinians had been killed in the week up to May 18.

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip at the Kerem Shalom Crossing in southern Israel, on May 19, 2025. Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

The Times of Israel reported that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who had threatened to quit the government coalition if aid was resumed—said he would remain because the food would not be going to Hamas.

According to The Times of Israel, Smotrich said in a televised statement: “This is not surrendering to pressure. It is doing the right thing to continue to focus primarily on destroying Hamas.”

Israel was accused of violating international law over the aid blockade during a series of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that began on April 28.

The ICJ will likely take several months to form its opinion.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.