Amid Blockade, Trump and Israel Mull Divisive Aid Plan For Gaza

The Trump administration is working with the Israeli government on a plan to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and end Israel’s two-month blockade on food and fuel deliveries, according to the State Department. Aid workers have raised serious doubts about the approach.

The mechanism has yet to be finalized, but the general idea is to establish a handful of distribution zones that would each serve food to several hundred thousand Palestinians, according to two Israeli officials and a U.N. diplomat. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the proposal, and The New York Times also reviewed briefing papers that detail the proposal and confirmed their authenticity with diplomats and officials.

The Israeli military would be stationed beyond the sites’ perimeters, allowing aid workers to distribute the food without the direct involvement of the soldiers, the officials and the briefing papers said.

The plan marks the first time that the Trump administration has been drawn into such detailed discussions about aid delivery in the Gaza Strip. Mr. Trump is considering announcing the plan in the coming days, before a trip to the Middle East, an Israeli and a U.S. official said.

Shelters for displaced people by a school in Jabaliya.

Israel and the United States say a new system is needed to prevent Hamas from stealing food supplies and profiting from them. By severing Hamas’s influence over aid, they hope to undermine the group’s wider influence over the Palestinian population, perhaps weakening its grip on power.