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What are the main routes by which Humanitarian aid arrives to Gaza? Who is taking care of transportation (gouvernements, non-government organizations, private contractors)? What proportion of the aid is channeled via each route?

My understanding is that most of aid is provided by the US and European states, and is transported by sea to Al-Arish (in Egypt) or Ashdod (in Israel) ports, where it is loaded to trucks and transported to Gaza.
(image source)
enter image description here

There are possibly land routes - I would expect a route going through Jordan to Saudi Arabia, but this New York Times article seems to suggest a land route via Egypt - it is not clear where it goes to.

Clarification (after discussion in the comments to Q. and the posted answer)
The question is not about how humanitarian aid enter Gaza (which is extensively covered by the mainstream media), but about how the aid arrives from where it originates all the way to the points where it can enter Gaza (or be turned back.) This requires some research or/and some pre-existing background/expertise, which is why IMHO it makes an interesting question.

As it has already been pointed above, most of aid arrives by sea, to Al-Arish or Ashdod, from where it is taken to Gaza by trucks. There are some indications that on the Egyptian side the transport from the port is handled by private contractors. There are also land routes - the one going through Egypt (in the map in NYT article linked above), and possibly a new route from Jordan, passing through West Bank and Israel (the first shipment was in the news, after it was first attacked by the Israeli settlers in the WB, and then diverted by Hamas on arrival to Gaza.)

Here is some information dating from January:
enter image description here

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    Is "none" an acceptable answer? Commented May 27 at 19:45
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    @QuittingDueToAntisemitism if you can support it by credible references.
    – Morisco
    Commented May 27 at 20:17
  • The Q needs needs a better/clearer def of route given your DV. As for "not clear where it goes to". It goes to Gaza one way? Are you asking where the "route" goes the other way? Is that even a meaningful Q? Commented May 29 at 5:00
  • DW is because the answer doesn't even address the question - you didn't even read the last paragraph it seems.
    – Morisco
    Commented May 29 at 5:01
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    @againstverylongusernames Wrote a nice detailed answer for the last bit of the route how the aid gets into Gaza (which is complicated and frequently changing). For the first part from Germany/ the US/ whereever to Egypt or Israel the aid shipments are just part of regular shipping. For that part there are no different from any other shipping travelling internationally. I don't see what you want to find out here?
    – quarague
    Commented May 31 at 8:24

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What are the main routes by which Humanitarian aid arrives to Gaza? Who is taking care of transportation (gouvernements, non-government organizations, private contractors)? What proportion of the aid is channeled via each route?

As the situation on the ground is changing, so will answers to this Q. So it's somewhat futile to try to answer it definitively. E.g. someone might have included the US floating pier (JLOTS) in an answer, but news is that it broke up in heavy seas yesterday. (N.B. they plan to tow it to Ashdod and repair there, then bring it back.)

There was aid through the Rafah crossing until there wasn't (about a 3 weeks ago) and also there wasn't back early in Oct. There wasn't aid through the Kerem Shalom in the earlier part of the war, but then there was since December. There weren't any air drops earlier in the war, but then there were some. Likewise the opening of Ashdod port for aid and Erez crossing is relatively new thing apparently since April. Etc., etc. OCHA has been much lagging in updating their database with summary data and following all their "flash updates" is too much work for average person to come up with some kind of summary as to how much entered from where and when. The same applies to COGAT tweets. N.B. there are two Erez crossings opened "East" and "West"--the latter since mid May. I'm not sure how far apart they are. Ah, yeah, OCHA managed to give us a map May 27 one below, that also shows the more obscure "Gate 96".

enter image description here

OCHA (a UN organisation) also has this breakdown by entry point (in the same brochure).

enter image description here

The OCHA breakdown provided a few days earlier is perhaps slightly more insightful as to recent (May) developments as it put a breakpoint at May 7 when the Rafah offensive seems to have started. (I'm not sure what's special about May 24/23 when the latest OCHA update has a breakpoint.)

enter image description here

I'm not sure how much COGAT (the Israeli government) agrees with that, because sometimes they disagree. There's also a caveat attached to the OCHA brochures themselves:

Commercial trucks are not captured in the above totals following 7 May. After 7 May, the UN was unable to directly observe the arrival of private sector cargo at Kerem Shalom crossing due to insecurity. Fuel is not included.

Also, the older OCHA updates form May 20 and before don't seem to have a breakdown by entry point, so my recollection that OCHA didn't use to provide that info is apparently not that wrong. Their May 20 report didn't include Erez data at all, resulting in substantially lower counts for May. (This is disclosed in the fine print of that older report, that they only included Rafah and Kerem Shalom then.)


COGAT also puts out some similar brochures, but TBH, I'm not too sure what they mean by "The Jordanian route" for instance. (Presumably stuff that came via the Allenby bridge). Latest breakdown (of sorts) I found was from May 15 though.

enter image description here

The main COGAT webpage has more up-to-date data (up to May 24 as I'm writing this), but it's not broken down by some kind of 'route', except for JLOTS and air drops. The rest is all (implicitly) land route there, right now.

enter image description here

(It's also not too hard to spot the ongoing/aforementioned disagreements with the UN, e.g. COGAT claims 298 trucks entered on May 24, while OCHA reported 160 [total, not average] for May 24-26.)


FWTW, as your Q seems to be about how Israel/COGAT defines or manages those 'routes'. The best I can do is give you this flowchart they provided:

enter image description here

Thus far I've not found more textual explanation that goes with it.

The route that 'goes to' (or passes through) Jordan is probably used by those countries that are closer to it (besides Jordan itself.) E.g. there are reports that Iraq and Turkey delivered some aid that way. Some World Food Programme convoys also entered from Jordan (first one in December apparently), but others passed through Egypt (as early as October). And yet others from the sea directly through Ashdod, more recently (April).

As for Egypt (that you seem also wonder about "a land route via Egypt - it is not clear where it goes to"), it was the main hub/route of aid until recently (Rafah offensive start), according to COGAT (infographic above). That surely included UN-umbrella aid, Saudi and UAE too--they shipped by cargo plane to Egypt--, but also Turkey sent aid that way sometimes. Whether that 'route' still 'goes to' anywhere since the Rafah offensive, who knows what the future holds? The COGAT report from May 15 says 0 trucks came that way May 9-15 (in that infographic above), but more recent news reports say that an agreement was brokered by the US to ship all that through Kerem Shalom for now. So maybe Egypt still has a role to play as a hub for routing some aid.

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  • My question is not about crossings - which is somewhat trivial and well covered, but how the goods get in the vicinity of Gaza: There are possibly land routes - I would expect a route going through Jordan to Saudi Arabia, but this New York Times article seems to suggest a land route via Egypt - it is not clear where it goes to.
    – Morisco
    Commented May 29 at 4:53
  • @FourLegsGoodTwoLegsBad: I guess you DV for COGAT being vague on that. Commented May 29 at 4:56
  • COGAT is responsible for what happens in the territories - ships in Mediterranean and trucks in Egypt and Jordan are beyond its jurisdiction. What about the new route through Jordan, where the shipping was attacked first by settlers and then by Hamas ?
    – Morisco
    Commented May 29 at 5:00
  • @FourLegsGoodTwoLegsBad: why don't you ask a new Q about that? Commented May 29 at 5:03
  • I already ask about it in this question, which you misunderstood. Now that I clarified it, you can improve the answer and get my downvote undone or even changed to an upvote. (You could also delete the answer and get your points back.)
    – Morisco
    Commented May 29 at 5:10

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