86% of Gaza aid looted before reaching civilians, UN reveals
Official data shows armed groups and looters seizing majority of humanitarian aid as starvation deaths mount
More than 86 percent of humanitarian aid delivered to Gaza since May has been looted or intercepted before reaching civilians, according to official United Nations data – prompting fresh scrutiny of Hamas’s control over the territory and raising fears of an irreversible humanitarian breakdown.
Figures from the UN’s 2720 Monitoring and Tracking Mechanism, verified by Jewish News and first reported by the Daily Mail, show that between 19 May and 5 August 2025, just 300 trucks out of 2,545 successfully reached their intended destinations inside Gaza.
The remaining 2,310 trucks, carrying more than 31,000 tonnes of aid, were seized “either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors,” according to the UN. Aid agencies say the chaos is fuelling bloodshed at distribution points and accelerating a starvation crisis already claiming lives.
Of the 38,933 pallets collected for delivery, only 5,085 arrived safely – a delivery rate of just 13.1 percent. Most of the intercepted aid was food, intended for hospitals, shelters and vulnerable civilians.
Though the UN did not attribute the seizures to specific groups, its relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has previously accused Hamas militants and other armed factions of looting convoys at gunpoint. Israel has long alleged that Hamas diverts international aid to support its war effort and maintain its grip over Gaza’s population.
Sarah Davies, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s lead in Jerusalem, warned: “Regardless of how many trucks enter Gaza, the critical issue is whether aid actually reaches the people who need it. Right now, that is not happening at the scale required.”
She added: “We are treating more patients showing signs of malnutrition, especially children. Some are wounded trying to access food and did not survive. They arrive dead on arrival.”
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said its field clinics had received “hundreds of people wounded or killed while simply trying to find something to eat” and accused Israeli forces and foreign contractors of firing on crowds near aid drops. “The few boxes that do enter rarely make it to people in need. And those that do are systematically accompanied by bloodbaths.”
Israel denies targeting civilians and accused Hamas of using the chaos to embed operatives within aid queues and stage provocations.
At least 175 people – including 93 children – have died from starvation since the start of the war, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The UN2720 tracking mechanism, introduced in early 2024 to improve accountability, uses QR codes and live updates to monitor aid from crossing points to delivery locations. But the latest data shows that while aid is entering Gaza, very little is being distributed safely.
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