Israel has announced a daily “tactical pause in military activity” in three areas of Gaza to enable more aid to reach people, amid growing international outrage over starvation in the territory.

The Israeli military said the move would “refute the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip.”

The pause – which will also see the military open up corridors to facilitate aid delivery by the United Nations and other agencies – has come too late for dozens of Palestinians, with officials in Gaza reporting more deaths from malnutrition and among people desperately trying to get aid from convoys and distribution sites.

And while the move has been welcomed by UN agencies, there are questions over whether it will be enough after months in which far too little aid has reached Gaza. Here’s what we know.

How did we get here?

In nearly two years of war that followed the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the vast majority of the population of Gaza has been displaced multiple times. Tens of thousands are living in the streets or makeshift tents. As Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed, access to water and power has become more difficult.

Above all, the delivery of humanitarian food aid has been interrupted by the fighting, by difficulties in distributing aid and by restrictions ordered by the Israel military.

Before the conflict, some 3,000 aid and commercial trucks would enter Gaza every week. Afterwards, numbers have plummeted.

During a ceasefire at the beginning of this year, an average of several hundred trucks crossed daily. But that didn’t last.

The situation dramatically worsened in early March, when Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza in an effort to force Hamas to release the hostages it still held.

How did we get here?, Why is it so hard to get aid in?, What has Israel announced?, How quickly could things improve?

Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, on Thursday. - Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters

Hunger was already widespread in Gaza and in the following months only grew. The UN warned that malnutrition was on the rise while nearly 6,000 aid trucks sat at the border.

At the end of May the blockade was partially lifted, and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – a private venture backed by the US and Israel – opened food distribution sites in southern Gaza. But the UN and others have criticized the GHF for violating basic humanitarian principles and for not being able to meet Gazans needs. GHF says it has distributed more than 90 million meals and blamed the UN for not coordinating with them.

More than 1,000 people have been killed since May in desperate efforts to obtain food for their families, the UN says, almost all of them by the Israeli military.

In May, the UN reported that the entire population was facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with 500,000 people facing starvation and more than 70,000 children set to require treatment for acute malnutrition.

Malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza spiked in July, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, with 63 deaths recorded. Over 5,000 children under five were admitted for outpatient treatment of malnutrition in just the first two weeks of July, the WHO said.

To date, 147 people have died of malnutrition in Gaza since the conflict began, Palestinian health officials say, nearly 90 of them children. The majority of those deaths have occurred since March.

Why is it so hard to get aid in?

The Israeli military blames the UN for failing to collect and distribute the aid that reaches the territory. The UN blames Israel for delivering nowhere near enough food, and for making the collection process complex.

UN officials have complained of huge security and bureaucratic impediments imposed by Israel. Those hurdles are present at almost all points of the distribution process, they say. When a truck arrives at a border crossing, the Israeli military inspects it. If the truck is approved, it enters Gaza and unloads its cargo, awaiting collection by other trucks within the enclave, many of which are operated by the UN.

But even the collection process faces holdups. Last week, the World Food Programme (WFP) said it requested permission for 138 aid convoys to collect cargo from the border holding area, but only 76 requests were approved – just over half.

“Once food aid is loaded, convoys are typically delayed, waiting up to 46 hours before receiving final permissions to travel along approved routes within Gaza,” WFP said Friday.

This delay allows huge crowds of starving Gazans to gather along the distribution routes, further complicating the process. Once Israel allows the trucks to be released, it can take convoys up to 12 hours to complete their missions, WFP added.

Dr. Fadel Naim, director of the Al-Ahli hospital in northern Gaza, said last week that Gaza needs at least 1,500 aid trucks daily for a month to stem the spread of starvation.

COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into Gaza, said around 180 trucks entered Gaza on Sunday. Before October 2023, between 500 and 600 trucks entered Gaza every day.

Despite the rising death toll from hunger in the enclave, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Sunday that there is no starvation in Gaza. An Israeli military spokesperson said they monitor supplies going into the enclave and that Israel “is not blocking aid.”

Two-year-old Yezen Abu Ful continues to lose weight as his condition worsens due to severe food shortages caused by the blockade and Israeli attacks, in Gaza City, Gaza on July 13. - Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu/Getty Images

What has Israel announced?

The tactical pauses announced by the Israeli military cover three areas along the Mediterranean coast – Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah and part of Gaza City – much of which were already supposed to be safe areas where the population could flee. The Israeli military published a map showing the areas where the pause would take effect but marked the rest of the strip in red as a “dangerous combat zone.”

The pause began Sunday and will last 10 hours, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time. It will continue every day “until further notice,” the military said.

An important aspect of the Israeli announcement is that designated “secure routes” will be established from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. local time, to enable UN and humanitarian organization convoys to safely distribute food and medicine. Hundreds of trucks have been looted in recent months, often by desperate people but sometimes by criminal gangs, and getting aid safely to warehouses in Gaza will be a major challenge.

Israel carried out an airdrop of aid into Gaza on Saturday night, having previously announced it would permit foreign countries to carry out operations. On Sunday, Israel, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates airdropped 28 aid packages.

But airdrops are regarded by aid agencies as expensive, inefficient and sometimes dangerous.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had also connected the power line from Israel to the desalination plant in Gaza, which would supply about 20,000 cubic meters of water per day – 10 times the current amount.

An airplane drops humanitarian aid over Gaza as seen from northern Gaza Strip on Sunday. - Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters

How quickly could things improve?

Trucks have begun to roll towards Gaza, including convoys from Egypt and Jordan. But the volume of aid needed is huge.

Thousands of vehicles are ready to enter Gaza with food and medical supplies, but the main crossing point at Kerem Shalom is already choked with truckloads of aid waiting to be distributed. There are only two crossing points into Gaza – Kerem Shalom and Zikim in the north.

Over 100 truckloads of aid were delivered to Gaza on Sunday, but “sustained action” is needed to address the crisis, Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said.

UN agencies have said that security and a lack of permissions from the Israeli military frequently hold up distribution.

UNICEF spokesman Joe English told CNN that the agency “cannot work miracles” with last-minute windows for getting aid into Gaza, because malnourished children require sustained care.

The WFP welcomed the Israeli announcement, saying it has enough food in - or on its way to - the region to feed the entire population of 2.1 million people for almost three months. It said it had received assurances that quicker clearances would be granted by Israel to allow for a surge in food assistance.

The decision to enable aid to flow has already sparked dissent within the Israeli government.

The far-right National Security minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he had not been consulted and the “only way to win the war… is to completely stop the ‘humanitarian’ aid, conquer the entire strip, and encourage voluntary migration.”