More funding needed to reach targets for Gaza aid shipments, UN official says
Muhannad Hadi, head of aid operations in Gaza and West Bank, says he’s ‘very happy’ with first days of shipments amid ceasefire, but only 3.6% of 2025 funding goal met so far

Funding shortages may affect the UN’s ability to maintain aid flows at target levels throughout the Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal, a UN official told Reuters on Thursday.
The Strip is set to be flooded with aid over the next five weeks, amid the first phase of the agreement, which went into effect last Sunday, between Israel and the Hamas terror group. The deal will initially see Hamas release 33 hostages, and Israel free almost 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners, with fighting stopped in Gaza.
The deal also stipulates that at least 600 trucks of humanitarian aid will enter the Strip each day. Daily deliveries have surged tenfold since the deal went into effect, according to UN data, meaning those levels have been surpassed on some days.
Muhannad Hadi, the top UN aid official for Gaza and the West Bank, told Reuters late on Thursday he was “very happy” with how the first few days had gone, but flagged funding as a concern.
“Funding is an issue. We need immediate funding to make sure that we continue providing the aid for the 42 days, but also after the 42 days, because we’re hopeful that we’ll go from phase one to phase two,” he said, after returning from Gaza earlier this week.
The UN is seeking $4.1 billion for the Palestinian territories this year, with nearly 90 percent set to go to Gaza. It is currently 3.6% funded.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the body largely responsible for providing services to Palestinians, has suffered serious hits to its funding in the thirteen months since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel — when terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages — started the war.
Countries have pulled their support for UNRWA or frozen it, in light of revelations that many of the agency’s employees in Gaza were Hamas fighters, and that a handful even participated in the October 7 attack.
Hadi described scenes of widespread joy and relief across the enclave since the ceasefire began, with many Gazans eager to return to the remnants of their homes and find work.
“I’ve received clear messages from the people: they don’t want to continue depending on humanitarian aid. They want to rebuild their lives… We can’t afford to let them down.”
Asked how the UN had managed to ramp up supplies so quickly, he cited an improvement in security for aid convoys, saying he saw local police everywhere during his visit. “The looting has reduced drastically,” he said.
The police Hadi described were presumably Hamas-affiliated, as the terror group still represents the only civil authority in Gaza.
Photos of aid trucks moving in Gaza have shown armed men atop them. Footage circulating in recent days has also shown Palestinians chasing aid trucks as they move through the enclave.

One of the remaining challenges for aid workers is the difficulty of moving food and supplies through the damaged streets of Gaza with many thousands of Palestinians on the move.
He said this could get worse starting this weekend, when many thousands of people are expected to be allowed to return to northern Gaza, under the terms of the ceasefire and hostage deal.
Throughout the 15-month war, the UN has said its humanitarian operations have faced problems with Israel’s military activities, access restrictions by Israel into and throughout Gaza, and looting by armed gangs.
The Israeli military has said that attacking and stealing aid is an ongoing problem, especially in southern Gaza. COGAT, the Defense Ministry body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, has said convoys are attacked by Hamas terrorists and known crime families.