Displaced Palestinians gather to receive food portions outside the damaged Imam al Shafi’i Mosque, where families have taken shelter, in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Oct. 23, 2025. (Credit: Omar al-Qatta/AFP)
Fewer than a hundred aid trucks operated by the U.N. and its partners have entered Gaza each day since a cease-fire earlier this month, a fraction of the total 600 trucks a day promised under the plan brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump, data analyzed by AFP shows.
Israel has authorized an average of 1,011 tons of aid — or 94 trucks — to enter Gaza each day between Oct. 10, when the cease-fire took effect, and Oct. 21, according to preliminary data from the United Nations.
This marks an increase compared to the 700 tons (or 62 trucks) supplied daily by the U.N. and partner NGOs between May 19 and Oct. 9, though it is still far from the large-scale deliveries the U.N. has planned for in the immediate aftermath of the cease-fire.
"The situation still remains catastrophic because what's entering is not enough," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Thursday, lamenting that "there is no dent in hunger because there is not enough food."
The International Court of Justice said Wednesday that Israel was obliged to ease the passage of aid into famine-wracked Gaza, stressing it had to provide Palestinians with the "basic needs" to survive.
The data analyzed by AFP is compiled by the U.N.'s "2720 Mechanism for Gaza," which has monitored and tracked humanitarian aid entering Gaza since May 19, the day after the end of Israel's two-month blockade of Gaza, which prevented humanitarian aid from entering.
The program's tracking — which relies on monitors verifying aid arrivals and collections for further distribution at Israeli checkpoints and in Gaza — excludes commercial trucks as well as some private aid groups, such as the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (the GHF left the strip after the cease-fire).
The busiest day for humanitarian aid coming in through the U.N.2720 Mechanism was Oct. 16, with 206 trucks entering Gaza.
On Oct. 15, U.N. Humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said that the aid entering in the previous few days was "a fraction of what's needed," with just "tens of trucks on a good day rather than the hundreds of trucks required."
At least 190,000 tons of aid have been positioned by the U.N. and partner NGOs to enter Gaza as soon as possible, though much of it is still waiting for clearance by Israel.
If the daily supply of aid continues at the pace it has been delivered since the ceasefire, it would take over six months for all of that aid to be delivered, according to an AFP analysis.
Food and nutrition
More than 93 percent of aid seen by the U.N. as it enters Gaza is food, with 1.7 percent made up of nutrition supplies — which is specific food such as high-calorie supplements given to vulnerable people like malnourished children or pregnant women.
On Aug. 22, the U.N. declared a famine in Gaza, the first in the Middle East, after experts warned 500,000 people faced "catastrophic" conditions.
Since then, close to 1,000 tons of nutrition supplies have been sent to Gaza.
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP), operating almost 70 percent of all aid trucks tracked by the U.N.2720 Mechanism since May, said it has delivered "enough [food] for close to half a million people for two weeks" since the cease-fire, according to a WFP spokesperson.
At an average of 850 tons a day from Oct.10-21, according to U.N.2720, which includes aid sent by the WFP as well as other actors, the amount of food arriving in Gaza is still well below the WFP's target of around 2,000 tons daily.
Other types of aid sent in the past weeks include water and sanitation products, shelter supplies, solid fuels such as wood pellets used for cooking and health-related supplies.
On top of aid tracked by U.N.2720, an average of 164,000 liters of fuel have entered Gaza each day since the cease-fire, compared to 68,000 liters per day in the 30 days before, the U.N. Office of Project Services (UNOPS) told AFP on Tuesday.
The U.N. has said it expects 1.9 million liters of fuel would be needed in Gaza each week (around 270,000 per day) to properly operate its post-cease-fire humanitarian relief plan.
Since tracking began on May 19, U.N.2720 data shows much of the humanitarian aid sent into Gaza does not make it to its intended destination, with some aid reportedly intercepted "either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully [by] armed actors during transit in Gaza," according to the U.N.2720 Mechanism's website.
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