JERUSALEM — A deadline under which the United States threatened to allow Israel to provide more aid to the Gaza Strip or deliver fewer arms shipments for its war with Hamas expired Tuesday, but the Biden administration said it would not limit arms transfers.

The amount of food and other aid is at its lowest level this year due to Israel’s border controls. Food security experts and human rights groups warn that famine may already have begun in northern Gaza. Almost the entire population of approximately 2.3 million Palestinians relies on international aid to survive as Israel and Hamas continue their nearly 13-month-old war.

“During my visit to Gaza last week, I witnessed the deliberate starvation of nearly 2 million civilians as the bombardment continued,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major aid organization. “There is almost no aid material for Gaza.”

Israel, which controls all crossings into Gaza, says it is committed to providing humanitarian aid and is working to increase aid. He says the UN and international aid groups need to do a better job of distributing supplies and that criminal gangs are stealing aid before it reaches civilians.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said progress made to date should be supported and sustained, but “we have not yet made an assessment that the Israelis have violated U.S. law,” which requires recipients of military aid to comply with international humanitarian law. and should not hinder the provision of such assistance.

“We are not giving a pass to Israel,” Patel said, “and we want to see the overall humanitarian situation improve.”

Where do the aid levels stand?

Aid to Gaza is generally measured by truckloads of food and supplies entering the region. The USA requested 350 trucks per day.

Israeli government figures show that an average of 57 trucks entered per day in October and 75 per day in November. The UN counts trucks differently and says it has received only 39 trucks a day since the beginning of October.

The numbers were even lower in the north of Gaza, where the Israeli army launched a major attack last month. The UN announced that no aid had entered the northernmost areas of Gaza (Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun) in October.

Israel announced that it closed all Gaza crossings in October due to Jewish holidays and could not send aid to the north due to the attack on Hamas fighters.

COGAT, the military agency that has been carrying out aid deliveries to Gaza in the last two days, announced that it has allowed aid trucks to enter the most affected northern areas. But only three of the trucks successfully reached their destination, according to the World Food Programme.

Passage and denial of entry

Aid groups accuse the Israeli army of preventing trucks full of aid from reaching the conflict-ridden areas, including northern Gaza, where hunger is worst.

“Aid may be waiting at the border, ready to arrive. However, if we are not provided with a safe passage to go and get help, it is not possible for us to get help. And it won’t reach the people who need it,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA was the main agency procuring and distributing aid in Gaza, and a dispute between Israel and the agency led Israel to ban that aid last month.

In October, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israeli authorities rejected about 43 percent of all humanitarian requests and blocked 16 percent.

Aid groups say Israeli authorities also ban some vehicles and goods from entering the area, often without reason. Rachel Morris, of the aid group Mercy Corps, said trucks carrying the group’s tent supplies had been turned away more than five times.

Israel says it does not allow entry of materials that could be weaponized by Hamas.

Under intense international pressure, Israel has since taken measures to increase aid distribution and COGAT said trucks had been allowed into the hard-hit north. Israel’s Security Cabinet approved increased aid to Gaza on Monday, according to an official familiar with the matter; This will increase the number of trucks entering Gaza every day.

But aid groups say access remains a problem.

The World Food Program said vehicles full of supplies were blocked from accessing Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya on Tuesday. The previous day, the UN agency said that it had received approval from the army to deliver supplies to Beit Hanoun, but was stopped by troops on the Jabaliya road and ordered the stocks to be unloaded there.

Lawlessness on aid routes

Theft and crime on aid routes also hinder distribution.

Israel accuses UNRWA of failing to pick up hundreds of trucks worth of supplies that have piled up at the region’s main aid crossing point in the south. It is said that help has been waiting there for months.

But both the military and aid agencies acknowledge that aid deliveries are treacherous, with family-based criminal groups robbing trucks. An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing rules, estimated that 30% to 40% of aid supplies were stolen by members of criminal families.

COGAT spokesman Shani Sasson said the Israeli army tried to secure part of the route and find alternative routes for drivers, but it could not escort every aid truck and criminal groups were constantly on the move.

Many aid groups that used to use the crossing say it is now too dangerous for their staff to collect aid. Aseel Baidoun, a senior executive at Medical Aid for Palestinians, said drivers sometimes have to pay a fee to transport aid through the Gaza crossing.

He said the Israeli army “failed to provide the appropriate environment for bringing sufficient humanitarian aid supplies to Gaza.”

Aid groups also say their warehouses and employees have come under attack by Israeli forces. OCHA says at least 326 aid workers have been killed since the start of the war. It is unclear how many people died while working.

What does Israel say when time expires?

The United States has not yet said how it will respond to lower aid levels. Last week the State Department said Israel needed to do more.

Israel’s new foreign minister, Gideon Saar, appeared to underestimate Washington’s deadline, telling reporters on Monday that he was confident “the issue will be resolved.”

The Israeli military announced on Tuesday that it will open the fifth crossing point for humanitarian aid to Gaza, an important request from the United States. However, it is not yet known when the Kissufim gate in the center of Gaza will be operational.