How the IDF gets aid into Gaza, and where Hamas takes it

The question the accusation skips

The film puts Israeli officers on camera at night, talking about how the Gaza war was fought, including how aid moved. The accusation against Israel usually stops at the fence: not enough went in. This post follows the aid past the fence. It sets the officers’ remarks against what Israeli agencies log, what a peer-reviewed food study measured at the crossings, where other counters disagree, and what happened once the trucks were inside Gaza. Entry at the fence and delivery to a household are two different facts. The accusers rarely ask about the second.

The numbers

COGAT, the Israeli defence-ministry unit that coordinates civilian affairs, logs trucks and cargo at Israeli crossings. The Jewish Virtual Library, compiling those figures, records that by 15 October 2024 Israel had facilitated 1,081,294 tons of supplies into Gaza on 54,786 trucks. Of that, 837,440 tons were food. The rest included water, medical supplies, shelter equipment, cooking gas and fuel.

A February 2025 study in the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, reported by the Jewish Virtual Library, examined food delivered from January to July 2024. Its finding: except in February, food crossing the borders exceeded per capita minimum humanitarian requirements, with an average of 3,004 calories available per person per day. An earlier window, January to April 2024, was reported at 3,163 kilocalories per person per day, above the Sphere energy standard of 2,100. The researchers measured food at the border, not what each household received. Keep that distinction in mind. It is where the story turns.

The October 2025 ceasefire changed the volume. The American Jewish Committee, citing COGAT, records about 1.78 million tons of food entering Gaza between October 2025 and June 2026, more than 18,000 tons of medicines and medical supplies after the ceasefire, and more than 70,000 cubic meters of water supplied each day from pipelines, desalination and other infrastructure. The same compilation says staple food prices fell about 72 percent between September 2025 and May 2026. Fox News, citing figures presented after the U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center opened in October 2025, reported that weekly truck deliveries rose from about 1,300 to about 4,200, that the share of trucks diverted en route fell from about 90 percent to about 1 percent, and that the number of people reached with food assistance rose from about 400,000 to about 2.1 million.

Look at the middle number. About 90 percent of trucks diverted en route. Diverted by whom? Keep reading.

These are Israeli government figures and later compilations of them. Aid organizations and other counters have described shortages, restricted access and hunger in Gaza at different points in the war, and they count cargo differently. CAMERA documented early mismatches in which Israeli daily truck totals at Kerem Shalom exceeded the numbers some international officials cited for the same days. COGAT told Israel’s Supreme Court in July 2024 that aid organizations had failed to collect 35 percent of the aid Israel had brought in during June. If a third of the aid sat uncollected, whose failure is that?

Crossings under fire

Kerem Shalom, in the south, is the main crossing for goods. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies records that Hamas fired on it repeatedly in May 2024, including a 5 May strike that killed four Israeli soldiers, after which the crossing closed. CAMERA likewise records that Hamas rocket fire on the crossing, not only inspection rules, interrupted traffic. Hamas terrorists fired at the gate the food came through. Aid groups have said closures, inspections and security restrictions slowed deliveries. Other land routes opened and closed as the front line moved.

Israel, the United States, Jordan and other partners also carried out airdrops. In 2024 the United States built a floating pier off the Gaza coast. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, citing the U.S. Defense Department, reported that more than 8,831 tons of aid had moved across the pier by late June 2024, when high seas forced it to be towed to Ashdod; Pentagon officials said land routes remained more efficient. The Jewish Virtual Library records 128 airdrops and 9,756 packages by mid-October 2024, and 166 trucks via the U.S. Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system. Rafah, the crossing with Egypt, has been used mainly for people rather than bulk cargo, and Egypt closed it for long stretches after the Rafah operation.

Why Israel inspects

Israel inspects cargo entering Gaza, and it has reason to. The Jewish Virtual Library records that the restrictions are meant to keep weapons and dual-use items from reaching Hamas, and that on 11 November 2024 the IDF intercepted ammunition hidden in a coordinated convoy inside Gaza. The American Jewish Committee describes the same inspections as a check against weapons and dual-use materials reaching Hamas and other terrorist groups. In October 2024, as reported by the Jewish Virtual Library, the U.S. secretaries of state and defense wrote that dual-use restrictions, among other measures, were contributing to a deterioration in conditions. Both positions are on the record, and individual delays are argued case by case. But ammunition hidden in an aid convoy is not a theory. It is the reason the checks exist.

Inside Gaza: who takes the aid

Entry is one step. Distribution is another, and that is where, as the IDF says, Hamas has taken aid. CAMERA, citing footage the IDF released and i24 News reported on 11 December 2023, records Hamas terrorists diverting supplies and beating civilians who tried to reach them. Fox News quoted U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee in August 2025 saying he had seen evidence of Hamas looting aid trucks and selling food on the black market. The American Jewish Committee, citing COGAT’s July 2026 humanitarian assessment, records Israeli officials attributing remaining market distortions less to shortages at the crossings than to Hamas influence over commercial distribution. COGAT told the Supreme Court in 2024 that a large share of loads sat uncollected on the Gaza side of the fence.

This is not new. The Jewish Virtual Library records that during the 2008–09 fighting Hamas terrorists were found taking medical supplies from aid trucks intended for civilian hospitals. Other accounts of the current war attribute gaps to fighting, displacement, damaged roads and access limits. The officers in the film describe the hunt for terrorists and the aid effort as one war. So ask the simple question: when food meant for families is sold on the black market, who profits?

Hostage operations on the same calendar

The officers in the film describe aid work and hostage recovery running at the same time in the same cities. The Anti-Defamation League records that the IDF’s first military recovery of a living hostage, Ori Megidish, was on 30 October 2023. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies records the 12 February 2024 rescue of Fernando Marman and Louis Har in Rafah, and the 8 June 2024 rescue of four hostages in Nuseirat. The hostage story, including Operation Arnon, has its own post.

The figures, then the film

The camera in the film sits on a roof, with city light and the sea to the west. IDF soldiers talk after dark about targeting, hostages and aid, from their own experience of the war. The film is a set of interviews, not an audit of aid figures. The figures are above. Israel logged what crossed, inspected it for weapons, and kept trucks moving while Hamas rockets repeatedly shut the main crossing. The diversion the record documents happened inside Gaza. Read the COGAT totals beside the other compilations and the aid-agency reports, and decide who has to explain the gap. Naza: The Real Story is free to watch online, with English subtitles.