Netanyahu halts North Gaza aid after Smotrich threatens to quit coalition over alleged Hamas access

Volunteers from Palestinian families organized in committees to prevent theft, guard trucks carrying aid in Gaza, according to an AFP report, 25 June 2025

Yaniv Kubovich, Noa Shpigel, Jonathan Lis and Nir Hasson report in Haaretz on 26 June 2025:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu halted the entry of humanitarian aid into the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened to leave the coalition if aid continued to reach Hamas.

Smotrich issued the threat during a cabinet meeting after a video was circulated on social media that allegedly showed armed individuals on aid trucks.

After the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced overnight into Wednesday that they had instructed the IDF to present a “plan of action” within 48 hours to prevent Hamas from taking control of the aid trucks.

They said that the measure came in response to information indicating that “Hamas is once again taking over the humanitarian aid entering northern Gaza and stealing it from civilians.”

The contents of dozens of aid trucks entering northern Gaza daily through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings are distributed by international humanitarian organizations, in contrast to the rest of the aid entering Gaza, which is distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

GHF’s northernmost distribution point is located along the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza.

Ahead of the resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza last month, Smotrich declared that “this time, nothing will go to Hamas.”  In a party meeting, he also said that he led “the demand to end the madness of sending in thousands of trucks that Hamas took over, sold, profited a billion dollars from, and used to preserve its rule.”

The Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry declined to specify what information led to the decision to cut off aid.  Shortly before Netanyahu and Katz’s announcements were made public, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett shared a video showing armed men on aid trucks in Gaza. In a post he published on X, Bennett claimed that they were Hamas operatives.  However, the IDF is unable to confirm at this time that the gunmen seen in the footage are Hamas members.

Media outlets in the Gaza Strip reported that the gunmen are not Hamas operatives, but security guards sent by tribal leaders in the Gaza Strip to protect aid truck convoys from looting. According to reports, the aid documented in the video reached its destination – the UN warehouses in the Gaza Strip – and was distributed to residents.  Ahed Shuhaiber, the director of the transportation company in charge of the trucks, shared the video on Facebook and thanked “the young people from the families who were along the entire route through which the trucks passed.”

Even before the decision to halt aid to northern Gaza, the amount of assistance entering the Strip did not meet the population’s needs. Food diversity in Gaza remains minimal, and the nutritional situation continues to deteriorate.

In the first two weeks of June alone, 1,648 children were hospitalized with severe malnutrition, and since the beginning of the year, 18,741 children have been hospitalized due to the same condition. Humanitarian organizations estimate that tens of thousands more children in Gaza are in urgent need of nutritional and medical support.

Food shortages, along with the IDF’s open-fire policy, continue to result in daily deaths near the GHF’s food distribution points or when crowds gather in desperate attempts to obtain food from aid trucks.  According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 519 people have been killed in the past month during incidents related to food distribution.

On Wednesday [25 June] alone, 74 people were killed by IDF fire and 391 were wounded, the ministry reported. Thirty-three of the fatalities were individuals waiting for humanitarian aid.

Since the beginning of the war, according to the ministry, 56,156 people have been killed and 132,239 wounded in Gaza

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