According to the first sentence on the front page of Saturday’s New York Times, Israel “has blocked most food and other aid from entering the Gaza Strip” during the war with Hamas.
The damning charge is repeated in a second Times story, published around the same time, which tells readers that “Israel has blocked most food and other aid from entering the enclave since the war began nearly two years ago,” on Oct. 7.
The statements, a clear message to readers that Israel has allowed only a trickle of food into Gaza, are categorical, sweeping, and definitive.
They are also false.
On average, thousands of tons of food aid per day have entered the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack. Even with the temporary blockage of most aid between March and May 2025, which contributed to concerning food insecurity (and a spate of dishonest reporting), the rate of food aid into Gaza since Oct 7 massacre has exceeded the pre-war rate.
OCHA’s dashboard shows an average of 2,285 trucks of food per day entered the Gaza Strip in 2023 before the war.
A data portal by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documents the entry of goods both before and after the start of the war. From January through September 2023, an average of 2,285 truckloads of food per month entered the Strip, according OCHA. With an estimate of about 15 tons of food per truck, that amounts to 1,142 tons per day of food entering Gaza prior to the war.
OCHA’s dashboard shows 17,665 truckloads of food between Oct. 23, 2023 and May 7, 2024.
The same portal describes 17,665 truckloads of food aid entering between Oct. 21, 2023 and May 7, 2024, the last date for which OCHA has complete data. That comes to about 1,332 tons per day.
Through May 2024, then, OCHA’s data contradicts the claim that “most” food has been blocked. (And this, it should be noted, is from an organization that hasn’t hesitated to slant statistics against Israel.)
1.5 million tons of food aid has entered Gaza since the start of the war, according to COGAT.
With OCHA explaining that its data after May 2024 is incomplete, we have to look elsewhere for a more up-to-date numbers. Fortunately, Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories has its own data portal that runs through August 2025. And per COGAT, 1.5 million tons of food aid has entered the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7 massacre. That averages to 2,245 tons/day since the start of the war – significantly more than what entered prior to the war.
Between August 1, 2025 and August 22, the day the New York Times pieces were published, 3,886 tons of food per day crossed into Gaza.
The increase in food aid certainly doesn’t suggest people are better off today. The fighting has crippled Gaza’s domestic food production, commercial trade, and distribution capabilities, and the increased quantity of food aid hasn’t been enough to prevent food insecurity. It does, however, mean the New York Times claims about “most” food being blocked are demonstrably false – yet another distortion in pursuit of its narrative.
The newspaper is aware of the errors, but has refused to correct them.