By Rawan Yousef
In Gaza, humanitarian aid has shifted from a lifeline to a tool of control. What was once a symbol of relief now serves as a mechanism of domination. In recent months, the illusion of humanitarian neutrality has shattered, exposing a system in which essential supplies—food, water, fuel, and medicine—are manipulated to fragment, discipline, and suppress Palestinian life.
This is not a failure of aid delivery. It is a strategy—one designed to manage and prolong suffering rather than alleviate it.
During the Nobel Women’s Initiative’s April 2025 delegation to Palestine and Jordan, we heard firsthand accounts of this weaponization. Women in Gaza shared harrowing experiences: a mother in Khan Younis struggling to feed her children with dwindling supplies; a nurse in Rafah operating without critical medical equipment. These testimonies reflect a broader pattern—where aid is not just withheld, but deployed strategically to exert control. Such stories echo those of past delegations, revealing enduring patterns of structural violence exacerbated by new tactics of deprivation, surveillance, and the systematic defunding of core services.
On May 19, 2025, following a 73-day blockade, Israel permitted only five aid trucks into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing. These carried baby food and other essentials. According to UN officials, however, this is nowhere near adequate: over 500 trucks per day are needed to meet even the most basic humanitarian needs. AP News described the move as “a drop in the ocean.”
At the same time, defunding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has had devastating consequences. UNRWA is the principal UN agency providing education, healthcare, and emergency assistance to Palestinian refugees across the region. In 2025, Sweden joined several other countries in suspending or cutting support to the agency. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned that these decisions directly jeopardize essential services relied upon by millions, especially in Gaza where no other aid infrastructure exists.
Since October 2023, more than 300 UNRWA staff have been killed in Israeli attacks—the highest death toll of UN personnel in the agency’s history. This staggering loss has paralyzed an already overwhelmed relief system and further crippled frontline humanitarian capacity.
Adding to the crisis, a growing push to privatize humanitarian aid—shifting delivery from multilateral institutions to private contractors—has raised deep concerns. Critics argue that this trend undermines transparency, weakens accountability, and introduces profit motives into the distribution of life-saving aid. According to Reuters, these changes are already underway through new frameworks supported by the United States, with many bypassing Palestinian-led organizations entirely.
The weaponization of aid is never gender-neutral. Women, often primary caregivers and community organizers, are disproportionately affected by the collapse of services. The blockade doesn’t just disrupt logistics; it fractures the core of everyday life, forcing women to make impossible decisions about health, food, and safety.
Women’s centers, operating on razor-thin budgets and under increasing restrictions, are often the last line of defense. During our delegation, local activists described organizing emergency food distributions, mental health support, and reproductive care all while under curfew or bombardment. These actions, though rarely acknowledged by international donors, are forms of feminist resistance.
International aid frameworks consistently exclude women’s voices in needs assessments, in strategy design, and in the broader humanitarian architecture. Feminist scholars have long warned that humanitarianism without justice perpetuates colonial power structures. Gaza exemplifies this: women lead local solutions but remain excluded from the donor decision-making tables.
A just humanitarian response must be rooted in solidarity—not neutrality. This includes restoring core funding to agencies like UNRWA, safeguarding the lives and rights of aid workers, and dismantling the conditions of apartheid that enable the weaponization of aid in the first place.
Policymakers must challenge the notion that managing suffering is a substitute for ending it. This requires moving beyond performative humanitarian gestures and holding occupying powers accountable for violations of international law. It also requires prioritizing local leadership, especially feminist and grassroots organizations, whose knowledge and resilience have kept communities afloat.
Finally, feminist movements must connect the struggle in Gaza to global systems of oppression. The logic of weaponized aid is not unique to Palestine, it is a hallmark of authoritarian governance, racialized borders, and neo-colonial intervention. In standing with Palestinian women, we must recognize their survival as resistance, and amplify it as a call for structural transformation.
Rawan Yousef is a Palestinian human rights advocate. She has a PhD in Public Policy and an M.A in Political Economy/Development. Rawan has worked in a number of international organizations and United Nations agencies in the past 15 years.