Israel’s Gaza aid reversal: Tactical shift or strategic confusion?
Israel resumed Gaza aid on May 18 after stalled military efforts and US pressure. The aid stoppage revealed an unclear strategy and recurring crises.
Israel decided to begin allowing humanitarian aid back into Gaza on May 18. This came almost two and a half months after Israel decided to prevent aid from entering Gaza when the first phase of a ceasefire deal ended on March 1.
It also came two months after Israel renewed military operations in Gaza on March 18.
Israeli leaders had talked tough about the humanitarian aid issue. Back on May 4 the Security Cabinet had decided on a new military offensive that would re-conquer Gaza for the long term and some Israeli political leaders vowed to destroy swaths of Gaza.
As part of the new campaign, Gazans were supposed to be able to come to southern Gaza to an area free from Hamas to receive aid. Politicians also talked about resettling large numbers of Gazans abroad.
The issue of humanitarian aid has become more acute recently. US Ambassador Mike Huckabee held a press conference on May 9 focused on the issue of a new US-led initiative to provide aid. The US pressure was clearly increasing, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed concerns about the aid stoppage.
Palestinians gather to receive aid provided by UNRWA including food supplies, after Israel says it has ceased entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, outside a distribution center, at Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, March 2, 2025. (photo credit: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa)
- *Israel’s leadership gives various reasons for why the aid is entering Gaza again*-
The new vision from Washington was that aid would be distributed at various points in southern Gaza and that private security contractors would help enable this. The IDF would be on some distant perimeter but not involved in distributing aid. The plan appeared complex, but the contractors began to arrive by May 18.
This led to the decision by Israel to suddenly enable aid again. It happened as the new operation envisioned on May 4 also took shape. Gideon’s Chariots is supposed to see the IDF operate throughout Gaza and take over the entire strip. Meanwhile, officials said that the provision of aid to Gaza would now be temporary until the southern distribution centers are operating.
It may take a week or more, the sources said on May 18.
Israel’s leadership gives various reasons for why the aid is entering Gaza again. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar says that this means Israel can continue its war with support from friendly countries. Israel’s Prime Minister's Office said that not letting aid in would “endanger the continued operation to defeat Hamas.”
The resumption of aid comes amid many quickly shifting changes. There were talks in Doha about a possible deal, which didn’t seem to lead anywhere. The IDF is also working now to divide Gaza into three sealed zones, according to a report at Ynet. This will include areas in central Gaza, Gaza City, and southern Gaza. It also appears increasingly likely that Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar was killed in an airstrike on May 14.
The issue with the aid cut-off and now resumption is that it is never clear what the cutting of the aid was intended to achieve. If the goal was to defeat Hamas or pressure Hamas, it’s not clear that it did pressure Hamas. Hamas has never agreed to a hostage deal with Israel solely because of humanitarian air pressure or military pressure. Instead, most deals were due to US pressure.
The US helped get Edan Alexander out of Gaza on May 13.
It was the coming to office of US President Donald Trump that enabled the hostage deal in January. The IDF spent all of 2024 using military pressure against Hamas, and Hamas never changed its bargaining position.
In fact, the deal agreed in January 2025 was basically the same one Hamas had offered for most of the year, according to reports. It’s not clear that the military campaign in Gaza ever took advantage of events to increase or slow down its tempo.
For instance, when Yahya Sinwar was killed, the IDF didn’t change its tactics at all; it continued the slow process of going into areas and leaving, going in and leaving. In many cases in Gaza, the IDF has fought over the same neighborhood three or four times.
The IDF is once again entering areas in northern Gaza, for instance, that it has already taken three or four times. None of this led to Hamas giving up. When it came time to free hostages, the hostage talks track never seemed to achieve results without US pressure. Usually, the US had to pressure Israel to take the deal.
When Mohammed Sinwar was killed, the IDF didn’t change its tactics either. It kept up a slow-moving campaign. There has now been a linkage between the humanitarian cut-off and the tempo of the campaign. For instance, aid was cut off in early March, but two weeks went by without a new offensive. Then the offensive didn’t take much territory.
When you cut off aid, a clock starts. Israel’s leaders say they knew that cutting off aid could lead to a hunger crisis that would jeopardize the continued fighting in Gaza. Yet, they didn’t start a clock and push the IDF to move faster. Instead, aid was cut off, and Israel waited from March 1 to May 4 to decide what to do.
By the time Gideon’s Chariots began on March 17, the aid was already being turned back on because of the looming hunger crisis. The result of the aid returning to Gaza will be that there will be less incentive for Gazans to go south to what is supposed to be a new aid distribution zone. It’s not even clear if they will be able to go south, adding more complexity.
The days when Israel fought fast wars and put a priority on speed, such as in 1967, no longer exist. That being said, it’s clear that using an aid cut-off as part of a tactic or strategy requires a Clausewitz-like thought process about how it dovetails with the goals of the war. Otherwise, it’s just turning aid on and off with no real results.
There was no sense back in March that when the aid was cut off, Israel would have two months of time to do something in Gaza. Instead, Hamas ran out the clock by waiting, as it has done since December 2023. When the first ceasefire deal collapsed on December 1, Israeli officials believed that military pressure would achieve more deals. However, this never happened.
In fact, the IDF reduced the tempo of operations, and by late February, there was a hunger crisis in Gaza. Aid was mostly cut off at this time to northern Gaza.
This led to the Flour Massacre when Gazans rushed aid trucks, and dozens were killed. This, in turn, led the Biden administration to send the floating pier to Gaza, an arduous disaster that took two months to get attached. Then it barely functioned and had to be shut down after injuring numerous Americans.
Meanwhile, the IDF opened a new aid route to northern Gaza called Erez West, making the entire issue of the pier unnecessary. Another gate called 96 enabled trucks to enter as well. The IDF had built a compound near the floating pier that was completely unnecessary.
Instead of learning the lessons from the aid cycle of crisis that unfolded from December 2023 to June 2024, Israel entered the same cycle in March 2025. It’s plausible that some of the reason for this was the perception that the Trump administration would let Israel do whatever it wanted in Gaza. Officials have spoken about “hell breaks loose” and “gates of hell” in terms of the operation.
However, the reality is that it has been the same slow-moving operation as in 2024 so far. The embrace of the so-called “Trump plan” to re-settle Gazans has likely led to a belief that there exists some magic wand to move a million people out of Gaza. However, as with the aid issue, no actual planning seems to take place to accomplish what is an incredibly complex task.
This leads Israel to continually lurch from crisis to crisis and be surprised at the fact that a friendly administration in the US will not accept a hunger crisis in Gaza. The concept of “continuing” the war has become a kind of totem now, an end in itself. The war goes on because it needs to go on.
Aid returns to Gaza because there is no plan for what will happen once aid is cut off.