For nearly two years, Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid provided by the United Nations and other international organizations. The government has used that claim as its main rationale for restricting food from entering Gaza.
But the Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations, the biggest supplier of emergency assistance to Gaza for most of the war, according to two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved in the matter.
In fact, the Israeli military officials said, the U.N. aid delivery system, which Israel derided and undermined, was largely effective in providing food to Gaza's desperate and hungry population.
Now, with hunger at crisis levels in the territory, Israel is coming under increased international pressure over its conduct of the war in Gaza and the humanitarian suffering it has brought. Doctors in the territory say that an increasing number of their patients are suffering from -- and dying of -- starvation.
More than 100 aid agencies and rights groups warned this past week of "mass starvation" and implored Israel to lift restrictions on humanitarian assistance. The European Union and at least 28 governments, including Israeli allies like Britain, France and Canada, issued a joint statement condemning Israel's "drip-feeding of aid" to Gaza's two million Palestinian residents.
Israel has largely brushed off the criticism.
David Mencer, a government spokesman, said this week that there was "no famine caused by Israel." Instead, he blamed Hamas and poor coordination by the United Nations for any food shortages.
Israel moved in May toward replacing the U.N.-led aid system that had been in place for most of the 21-month Gaza war, opting instead to back a private, American-run operation guarded by armed U.S. contractors in areas controlled by Israeli military forces. Some aid still comes into Gaza through the United Nations and other organizations.
The new system has proved to be much deadlier for Palestinians trying to obtain food handouts. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, almost 1,100 people have been killed by gunfire on their way to get food handouts under the new system, in many cases by Israeli soldiers who opened fired on hungry crowds. Israeli officials have said they fired shots in the air in some instances because the crowds came too close or endangered their forces.
The military officials who spoke to The New York Times said that the original U.N. aid operation was relatively reliable and less vulnerable to Hamas interference than the operations of many of the other groups bringing aid into Gaza. That's largely because the United Nations managed its own supply chain and handled distribution directly inside Gaza.
Hamas did steal from some of the smaller organizations that donated aid, as those groups were not always on the ground to oversee distribution, according to the senior Israeli officials and others involved in the matter. But, they say, there was no evidence that Hamas regularly stole from the United Nations, which provided the largest chunk of the aid.
A Hamas representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
An internal U.S. government analysis came to similar conclusion, Reuters reported on Friday. It found no evidence of systematic Hamas theft of U.S.-funded humanitarian supplies, the report said.
"For months, we and other organizations were dragged through the mud by accusations that Hamas steals from us," said Georgios Petropoulos, a former U.N. official in Gaza who oversaw aid coordination with Israel for nearly 13 months of war.
The senior military officials and others interviewed by The Times spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on behalf of the military or government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, the military said that it has been "well documented" that Hamas has routinely "exploited humanitarian aid to fund terrorist activities." But the military did not dispute the assessment that there was no evidence that Hamas regularly stole aid from the United Nations.
The Israeli government and military have often clashed over how to conduct the war in Gaza. Early last year, top commanders urged a cease-fire with Hamas to secure the release of hostages. Mr. Netanyahu's government instead expanded the ground operation in southern Gaza.
Israel used the rationale that Hamas steals aid when it cut off all food and other supplies to Gaza between March and May. In March, after a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel collapsed, Mr. Netanyahu said: "Hamas is currently taking control of all supplies and goods entering Gaza," and he declared that Israel would prevent anything from entering the territory.
That blockade, and problems with a new aid system that launched in May, brought hunger and starvation in Gaza to the current crisis levels.
For most of the war, the U.N. was the largest single source of aid entering Gaza, according to data from the Israeli military unit that oversees policy in the territory.
Now, the new aid system is managed instead by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or G.H.F., a private American company led by a former C.I.A. agent. It was intended to eventually replace international aid organizations and the U.N. role.
But it has only a few distribution hubs, compared with hundreds under the former U.N.-run operation.
The new system's rollout at the end of May was quickly followed by near-daily episodes of deadly violence near distribution sites. Desperate and hungry Palestinians must go to the few aid distribution sites located in areas controlled by Israeli forces. The hours of operation are limited and supplies run out, so crowds arrive early, with some walking for miles to get there.
After concluding that Hamas had not stolen from the United Nations on a regular basis, members of the Israeli military met in mid-March with Mr. Netanyahu's military adviser to discuss the government's emerging plans for a new aid system, according to the officials interviewed by The Times.
At the meeting, they said, military officials expressed concerns about the intention for G.H.F. to be the sole provider of aid for all of Gaza and presented a plan to expand the U.N. role in parts of Gaza where the private group was not expected to operate.
The military officials in the meeting also suggested that the United Nations could distribute other types of aid that the G.H.F. does not hand out, such as medical supplies.
But the government initially dismissed the military's plan, according to three of the people familiar with the matter and records reviewed by The Times.
Eventually, when the military warned of looming hunger in Gaza in May, the government changed its position and allowed the United Nations and other organizations to distribute aid along with the G.H.F.
Since May 19, when Israel allowed emergency supplies to resume entering Gaza after its two-month blockade, half of the aid has been distributed by the United Nations and international organizations, with the other half coming through the G.H.F., the Israeli military says.
Over the course of the war, the Israeli military released records and videos purporting to show how Hamas has been exploiting humanitarian aid. The army also shared what it described as internal Hamas documents found in a headquarters in Gaza, which discuss the percentage of aid taken by various Hamas wings and dated to early 2024. But those documents do not specifically refer to the theft of U.N. aid.
Israel has long had tense relations with the United Nations, which spilled over into open hostility during the Gaza war. Israel accuses the organization of bias and says that it was infiltrated by Hamas, including claims that U.N. staff took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack that started the war.
Israel has accused the United Nations of failing to collect truckloads of aid sitting idle near a border crossing into northern Gaza.
The United Nations, in turn, says the Israeli military has not provided enough secure routes to send those trucks in. It accuses Israel of destroying Gaza and blocking critical aid.
This past week, Israel refused to renew the visa of Jonathan Whittall a senior U.N. humanitarian official who oversees humanitarian affairs in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the official had "spread lies about Israel."
Mr. Petropoulos, the former U.N. official in Gaza, welcomed the notion that some Israeli officials had recognized the U.N.-led aid system as effective during the war. But he said he wished that endorsement had come much sooner.
"If the U.N. had been taken at face value months ago, we wouldn't have wasted all this time and Gazans wouldn't be starving and being shot at trying to feed their families,"