Fuel, aid shortages cripple Gaza emergency services and relief efforts amid Israeli blockade
Gaza’s civil defense agency said that a lack of fuel had forced three-quarters of its emergency vehicles to stop operating
World Central Kitchen halted operations after running out of food, having served 133,000 meals and baked 80,000 loaves daily in recent weeks
Updated 08 May 2025
AFP
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s worsening humanitarian crisis deepened Thursday as fuel shortages forced most civil defense vehicles off the roads and a major aid group shut down its soup kitchens amid Israel’s continued blockade on humanitarian supplies.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Thursday that a lack of fuel had forced three-quarters of its emergency vehicles to stop operating, more than two months into an Israeli aid blockade.
“Seventy-five percent of our vehicles have stopped operating due to a lack of diesel fuel,” the agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that its first responders were also facing a “severe shortage of electric generators and oxygen devices.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s ongoing blockade of humanitarian assistance for Gaza forced a leading aid group on Thursday to shut its community soup kitchens, faced empty warehouses and no replenishment of supplies in the war-battered enclave.
World Central Kitchen was serving 133,000 meals per day and baking 80,000 loaves of bread over the past weeks, but said it was forced to suspend operations since there is almost no food left in Gaza for the organization to cook.
The lack of food is threatening Gaza’s population, already battered by 19 months of war. In April, the World Food Program said its food stocks in Gaza have run out under Israel’s blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory.
Malnutrition and hunger are becoming increasingly prevalent in the Gaza Strip as Israel’s total blockade enters its third month. Aid agencies say a shortage of food and supplies has driven the territory toward starvation and supplies to treat and prevent malnutrition are depleted and quickly running out.
Israel imposed the blockade on March 2, then shattered a two-month ceasefire by resuming military operations in the territory on March 18. It said both steps aim to pressure the militant Hamas group to release hostages the extremists still hold. Rights groups call the blockade a “starvation tactic” that endangers the entire population and a potential war crime.
Community kitchens such as the ones run by World Central Kitchen are a lifeline for hundreds of thousands for their daily meal, but many are shutting down due to lack of supplies.
At those still open, chaotic scenes of desperate men, women and children fighting to get meager rations are common. Bakeries have closed, while water distribution is grinding to a halt due to lack of fuel.
Since the start of the war, World Central Kitchen said it has served more than 130 million meals and baked 80 million loaves of bread. The organization also said on Thursday there was no flour left in their mobile bakery.
“Our trucks— loaded with food and supplies— are waiting in Egypt, Jordan and Israel, ready to enter Gaza,” said José Andrés, the celebrity chef who founded the organization. “But they cannot move without permission. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow.”
COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing aid to Gaza, said the blockade would continue unless the Israeli government changed its policy.
Since the start of the year, more than 10,000 children have been admitted or treated for acute malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization. The increase was particularly dramatic in March, with 3,600 cases — an 80 percent increase, compared to the 2,000 children in February, UNICEF reported.
Nearly half the 200 nutrition centers around Gaza have shut down because of displacement and bombardment.
World Central Kitchen had previously suspended operations in April of last year after seven aid workers were killed in Israeli strikes on their convoy, before resuming weeks later.
What role will Palestinian technocrats play in Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction?
Newly formed committee prepares to help administer Gaza under Trump-backed plan, despite continued uncertainty
Stabilization efforts gather pace with Board of Peace funding pledges, but access and security questions remain unresolved
Updated 4 sec ago
KHALED ALKHAWALDEH
DUBAI: US President Donald Trump convened the first meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington on Feb. 19, bringing together about two dozen allied leaders and diplomats to discuss postwar governance of Palestine’s Gaza Strip.
Among those in attendance was Ali Shaath, a former undersecretary in the Palestinian Authority widely regarded as a nonpartisan figure. In January, he was appointed to lead the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a 15-member body of technocrats expected to serve as the board’s governing partner on the ground.
As the vision takes shape, the scale of reconstruction presents a daunting challenge. A joint rapid damage assessment by the UN, European Union and World Bank estimates the cost of rebuilding Gaza and making it safe at approximately $70 billion.
Officials say about $20 billion will be needed in the first three years to jump-start recovery and stabilization.
At Thursday’s meeting, nine board member states committed a total of $7 billion toward a relief package, while the US committed an additional $10 billion.
Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion to support efforts aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Addressing the board, Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir said the Kingdom was embarking “on a journey toward establishing a lasting and just peace in the Middle East.”
Member of the Council of Ministers of Saudi Arabia Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir attends the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace on February 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. (AFP)
He emphasized a two-state solution in which “Palestine and Israel live side by side in peace and security.”
Such an outcome, he added, would transform the region “from death and destruction to hope and prosperity.” He also expressed Saudi Arabia’s readiness to cooperate with the Board of Peace to advance what he described as a “noble objective.”
For his part, Shaath outlined the committee’s mandate. “A new governing authority is now in place for Gaza with a clear mandate and a clear commitment to establishing development and stability,” he said, noting it would operate “in extremely difficult conditions.”
“Large parts of the Gaza Strip are severely damaged — destroyed actually, humanitarian needs are acute, law and order remain fragile,” he added.
Israel’s military campaign, launched after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, displaced nearly the entire population, and devastated civilian infrastructure.
Against this backdrop, the Board of Peace, announced in mid-January, is intended to coordinate Gaza’s reconstruction, security arrangements, and political transition under US leadership, with Trump as chair.
As part of that effort, Shaath said the committee’s immediate priority would be to restore security by deploying a 5,000-strong police force drawn entirely from Gaza within 60 days.
From there, the focus would shift to reviving economic activity, delivering sustained emergency relief, and restoring basic services.
“Our mandate is simple,” he said. “Step by step, to build the foundation for lasting peace, dignity and prosperity for the people of Gaza.”
But what is the structure of the Palestinian governing body tasked with carrying out that mission, and how viable will it be?
Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Arab News that the committee’s final composition has been in flux for months. By cross-referencing images from meetings in Cairo with European Commission records, he has identified several of its members.
He said the group appears to include many former Palestinian Authority officials, despite Israel’s insistence that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority should play a role in postwar governance.
“What comes out of the profiles is the extent to which the members of the committee have had ties to the Palestinian Authority and to the Fatah party of President (Mahmoud) Abbas,” Lovatt said.
As an example, he cited Sami Nasman, a prominent officer in the Palestinian General Intelligence Service who is expected to oversee internal security.
At the same time, he noted that several other members come from humanitarian and academic backgrounds and appear less politically aligned.
According to Lovatt, the committee faces significant hurdles, with Hamas having yet to disarm, and Israel continuing to block committee members from entering Gaza.
“They aren’t even allowed into Gaza at the moment,” he said. “They don’t have funding; they don’t have civil service at the moment.”
Israel has barred committee members from entering Gaza via the Rafah crossing, citing security concerns, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Members are currently operating from Egypt or remotely, limiting their ability to exercise authority on the ground.
In the interim, Lovatt said, governance on the ground is largely in the hands of existing civil servants, adding that Hamas insists on keeping much of Gaza’s bureaucracy intact after any transfer of power — an arrangement that appears to have been accepted for now.
As a result, while the technocratic committee undergoes training in Cairo under the Board of Peace, the day-to-day administration of Gaza continues to rely on the pre-existing civil infrastructure.
Indeed, although Hamas publicly pledged in late January to hand over civilian administration, it reportedly retains full control of security forces, about 40,000 civil servants, and its weapons.
Full disarmament, which is a core condition tied to Phase Two of Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan and Board of Peace oversight, has yet to be implemented.
The war in Gaza has been widely described by rights groups and UN bodies as amounting to “genocide,” with accusations that Israel used starvation as a weapon of war.
According to the local health authority, at least 72,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, were killed and more than 171,680 were injured until a ceasefire took effect on Oct. 9.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a former Hamas commander, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Nickolay Mladenov, a former Bulgarian politician selected as the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, said that while the committee is prepared to assume its mandate, the situation remains volatile.
“Unfortunately, some people believe that this is a bit like changing a government after an election,” he told CNN during a recent interview. “It’s far more complicated than that.
“We need to be able to verify and to confirm that the transfer of authority by Hamas to the International Committee happens in a meaningful way.”
Mladenov, who acts as the link between the board and the committee, maintained that Trump’s plan is the most comprehensive path forward, while warning that alternatives could be catastrophic.
“I think we need to make very clear to everyone that there are only three pathways forward,” he said.
“One pathway leads to a resumption of war, and that is certainly something that we want to avoid. The second pathway, perhaps even more dangerous than the resumption of war, is cementing the situation which you have now, where Gaza is divided.”
The third pathway, he said, “requires Hamas to give up civilian control of Gaza, to decommission all weapons inside the Gaza Strip, and to have a new governance model that allows for reconstruction to happen.”
Gaza remains physically and politically divided, split between Israeli-controlled eastern buffer zones, including the Yellow Line, and a densely packed western coastal strip where most Palestinians are confined.
Israel controls more than half of Gaza’s land, enforcing no-go zones and preventing full Palestinian access or return. The remaining coastal enclave, which is ever-shrinking due to operations, is managed uneasily between Hamas’s residual security hold, the sidelined technocratic committee, and limited aid flows via Rafah, which Israel contests.
Given these circumstances, some observers question whether the committee will ultimately be able to benefit Palestinians in Gaza.
Hannan Hussein, a senior expert at the Initiate Futures policy think tank, cautioned that the technocratic committee might “ultimately work to implement reconstruction in Gaza in a manner that is beneficial to Israel.”
He told Arab News: “Its success is ultimately tethered to the operations of the Board of Peace. Its mandate comes at a time when the possibilities of enduring peace in Gaza are not in line with the interests of besieged Palestinians.
“This is important, because enduring stability remains distant when those subject to aggression lack a voice within the committee. To succeed, it needs ownership from the ground up, which is lacking.”
Those concerns are compounded by ongoing violence despite a ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 9. Israel has continued airstrikes and raids that have killed Palestinians and obstructed large-scale reconstruction, keeping the territory in a state of chronic emergency.
Since the ceasefire took effect, another 601 Palestinians had been killed and 1,607 injured, according to Gaza’s health authority.
Aid groups continue to call for a genuine and sustained cessation of violence, saying continued violence, displacement and restrictions on humanitarian access are hindering the delivery of essential assistance.
Although the Rafah crossing with Egypt reopened on Feb. 2 in both directions, the flow of people and aid is below agreed levels, an official from the Egyptian Red Crescent in North Sinai told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Feb. 19.
Hussein also raised concerns about the committee’s lack of independent oversight and questions surrounding transparency.
Even so, the committee appears, for now, to have the broadest backing of any Palestinian body positioned to govern Gaza, with both Hamas and Israel agreeing in principle to its formation.
Implementation of the Gaza plan appears to be moving forward, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The latest confirmed list of technocrats suggests a final roster of 16 to 17 commissioners, although several portfolios — including transport, energy, land authority and religious affairs — remain to be finalized.
