World
Aid is surging into Gaza under the ceasefire. Is it helping?
JERUSALEM (AP) — Two weeks after the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect, aid is flooding into the Gaza Strip, bringing relief to a territory suffering from hunger, mass displacement and devastation following 15 months of war.
But Palestinians and aid workers say it’s still an uphill battle to ensure the assistance reaches everyone. And looming large is the possibility that fighting will resume if the ceasefire breaks down after the six-week first phase.
As part of the ceasefire agreement, Israel said it would allow 600 aid trucks into Gaza each day, a major increase. Israel estimates that at least 4,200 trucks have entered each week since the ceasefire took hold.
Humanitarian groups say aid distribution is complicated by destroyed or damaged roads, Israeli inspections and the threat of unexploded bombs.
On Saturday, Samir Abu Holi, 68, watched over a food-distribution point in Jabaliya, an area in northern Gaza razed to the ground during multiple Israeli offensives, the most recent of which cut off nearly all aid for over a month.
“I have more than 10 children. All of them need milk and food. Before the ceasefire, we used to provide food with difficulty,” he said. “Today there is a little relief.”
Here’s a closer look at the aid situation.
A surge of aid
The main U.N. food agency, the World Food Program, said it dispersed more food to Palestinians in Gaza during the first four days of the ceasefire than it did, on average, during any month of the war. Over 32,000 metric tons of aid have entered Gaza since the ceasefire, the agency said last week.
Aid is now entering through two crossings in the north and one in the south. Aid agencies said they are opening bakeries and handing out high-energy biscuits, and Hamas police have returned to the streets to help restore order.
Before the ceasefire, aid organizations said delivery was complicated by armed gangs looting the trucks, attacks on aid workers, arduous Israeli inspections and difficulties coordinating with COGAT, the Israeli military body charged with facilitating aid. Israel blamed the U.N. and humanitarian organizations for failing to deliver aid once it reached Gaza.
There’s now the “political will to make everything else work,” said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli organization dedicated to protecting Palestinians’ right to move freely within Gaza.
“COGAT is fast-tracking responses to coordination requests. It’s allowing two crossings instead of one to operate in the north. The ceasefire is allowing Hamas forces to operate freely to stop looting … and the lack of hostilities allow aid agencies to move freely and safely,” Hary said.
Food prices are still a challenge
Nadine Jomaa, a young woman in Bureij in central Gaza, said the aid is not freely available, and she needs to buy goods in the market, where they are resold for inflated prices. Though prices are coming down, flour and cooking gas still cost roughly triple the amount they did before the war, according to the World Food Program.
Her family is eating only cheap canned goods. “We need more food, water, household items for the kitchen and bathroom and women’s items,” she said.
Although humanitarian officials have long said the best way to prevent extortion is to flood Gaza with aid, Palestinians in the north say that, so far, the influx appears to have only boosted shadowy middlemen. Residents complain that there are not nearly enough tents entering Gaza while non-essential items such as chocolate, nuts and soda are suddenly ubiquitous.
Ahmed Qamar, 34, who returned to live in the ruins of his former home in Jabaliya, said his area has seen just a few dozen aid trucks.
“Hundreds of families here are sleeping in the open and in the cold,” he said. “We need electricity and shelter, and meanwhile markets are flooded with chocolate and cigarettes.”
Though aid workers say the Israeli inspection process has accelerated, getting certain types of aid into Gaza is still challenging. Some items are deemed “dual-use,” barring them from Gaza because of concerns they could be diverted by militants for military purposes.
Some hospitals and desalination plants still have fuel shortages. And Hamas on Sunday accused Israeli officials of obstructing the delivery of medical supplies and reconstruction machinery.
According to a list circulated to humanitarian groups by COGAT and shared with The Associated Press, desalination and water-collection devices, storage units, tools, tent kits, ovens, water-resistant clothing and equipment for shelter construction teams all require “pre-approval” before entering Gaza. Large tents, sleeping bags, portable toilets, heating pads and vaccines are cleared to enter the strip without Israeli approval.
“While aid is getting in in higher numbers, we also know that those restrictions on essential items are persisting,” said Sophie Driscoll, head of communications for the International Rescue Committee in the Palestinian territories.
COGAT acknowledged keeping certain items on the dual-use list but said it is still permitting them into Gaza after screening. The agency said tents are not considered dual-use, and Israel has allowed tens of thousands into Gaza in recent weeks “without restriction.” It also said Israel has extended the hours crossings are open and allowed road repairs inside Gaza.
“Regarding the distribution of aid inside Gaza, Israel does not control the situation inside,” COGAT said.
Destroyed roads, unexploded ordnance
Roads have been heavily damaged by the war, and unexploded bombs litter the landscape. The U.N. estimates that 5% to 10% of all ammunition dropped in Gaza has failed to detonate, making the territory potentially perilous for civilians and aid workers.
UNMAS, the U.N. agency handling unexploded ordnance, said that since the ceasefire took hold, humanitarian convoys and civilians have reported finding large aircraft bombs, mortars and rifle grenades.
As they return home, many Palestinians are living in areas where the water network has been destroyed. That makes dehydration and the spread of disease due to poor sanitary conditions and limited medical care a threat.
Speaking from southern Gaza, Jonathan Crickx, chief of communications at UNICEF, recalled being on a road where “thousands and thousands of children and families were walking.”
“I was seeing them with nothing,” he said, “only the clothes they’re wearing on their back.”
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NATO must become more European to reduce its long-standing reliance on the US security umbrella, Ursula von der Leyen and Mark Rutte said on Tuesday as leaders of the 77-year-old alliance gathered in Ankara, Turkey, for their annual summit.
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“We both know how important close cooperation between the European Union and NATO is,” the European Commission president said alongside the NATO secretary general at an industrial forum ahead of the summit.
“But to make this possible, what we need is interoperability.”
Rutte echoed von der Leyen’s remarks, highlighting the “clear division of labour” between the two organisations: NATO oversees the command structure, capabilities and standards, while the EU is responsible for industry, investment and regulation.
Twenty-three of the EU’s 27 member states are also members of NATO.
“We cannot continue, as we did, being over-reliant on the United States. We need a much stronger Europe within a stronger NATO,” Rutte said, hailing an “unparalleled” transformation driven by closer EU-NATO cooperation.
“To stay transatlantic, we have to become more European.”
The Ankara summit comes after months of growing tensions across the Atlantic, fuelled by the White House’s unilateral decision to strike Iran and its gradual reduction of military assets stationed in Europe.
Rattled by the deepening fractures, Europeans are determined to show US President Donald Trump that they are pulling their weight and stepping up their defence investment at a rapid pace, a trend often described as the “Europeanisation of NATO”.
But while some nations, such as Poland, the Baltics and the Nordics, have drastically increased their military spending towards the new 5% of GDP target, others, such as Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, still lag far behind.
On Tuesday, von der Leyen touted the financial plans that her Commission has put forward to ramp up homegrown defence capabilities: €150 billion under the SAFE loan programme and €135 billion provisionally allocated in the next EU budget.
“In this geostrategic and geopolitical environment, we need a massive surge in defence investment,” she said.
“With this taxpayers’ money, we want, of course, a return on investment. And we want good jobs in Europe. We want research and development in Europe. So that’s important for us,” she added.
Rutte said NATO requires a “huge increase” across its entire defence industrial base, on both sides of the Atlantic, to keep up with Russia’s all-consuming war machine.
“Russia has the whole of its economy now on a war footing. The car industry in Russia is producing for the war effort, and that means that we’ve got to do this also in Europe, Canada and the US,” Rutte said.
“We have to defend ourselves. It’s the first task for every government. And the threat is there. Russia are working with North Korea, Iran and China. Let’s not be naive.”
“Respect the grind you never see,” Kerr Kriisa wrote in an Instagram post on Oct. 30, captioning a series of stylized photos showing him clutching a basketball and flexing his muscles in the jersey of his new team, the University of Cincinnati. Presumably, the well-traveled guard was referring to the unseen work of preparing for another college basketball season at his fourth school in four years, following stints at Arizona, West Virginia and Kentucky.
But according to a federal grand jury, Kriisa might as well have been referring to a much more sinister kind of hidden hustle.
On Monday, federal prosecutors unsealed a grand jury indictment charging the Estonian-born basketball player with orchestrating a yearslong wire fraud scheme that used fabricated personal crisis, false identities and other deceptions to induce two victims to send him roughly $2.2 million.
The indictment, returned in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia—where Kriisa played for the Mountaineers for the 2023-24 season—traces the alleged scheme back to at least 2022, when he was heading into his junior year at Arizona. The following year, after transferring to West Virginia, Kriisa would face a nine-game suspension for violating NCAA rules governing impermissible benefits while with the Wildcats.
Those unrelated NCAA infractions, however, pale in comparison to the federal allegations he now faces.
Prosecutors’ timeline suggests Kriisa’s alleged criminal conduct tracked closely with his college basketball career, with many of the acts occurring during the heart of the season.
Sportico was unable to identify an attorney representing Kriisa and his agent did not respond to an email request for comment.
According to the indictment, his alleged scheme involving the first victim began in August 2022 and continued through April 2025, when he was transferring from Kentucky. Prosecutors allege that Kriisa began targeting a second victim on Nov. 18, 2025, three days before Cincinnati lost to No. 6 Louisville in a game in which Kriisa, then a starter, shot 2-for-7 from the field.
Much of the alleged activity involving the second victim occurred in late December, as Cincinnati went on holiday break. On Dec. 29, prosecutors allege, Kriisa sent the second victim an email while posing as a fictional person named “Irene.” That same day, Cincinnati played Lipscomb, with Kriisa coming off the bench for the first time that season. He scored 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting from 3-point range.
Prosecutors allege Kriisa sent another email as “Irene” on Jan. 28, the same day Cincinnati beat Baylor. Kriisa played limited minutes that game while still recovering from an injury he suffered earlier that month. The five charged wire-fraud counts stemmed from emails and text messages Kriisa sent Feb. 1 to Feb. 4, a day before Cincinnati lost at home against West Virginia, his former team. Kriisa played 15 scoreless minutes that game, a loss, while posting the worst +/- of any player on either team.
The indictment says that the victim who was the recipient of those messages received them in Morgantown, W.Va., where WVU is based, but does not explain how Kriisa was connected to them.
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An island-wide blackout plunged Cuba into darkness Monday as the country’s deepening energy crisis continues to strain its fragile power system.
The outage affected roughly 10 million people before limited electricity service was restored in some areas.
“A total disconnection of the National Electric Power System is occurring,” Cuba’s state-run Electric Union said Monday morning. “The causes are being investigated.”
Cuba has faced increasingly frequent power outages in recent years as the country struggles with chronic fuel shortages and deteriorating electrical grids. The crisis worsened when President Donald Trump imposed additional sanctions in January and threatened tariffs on countries that provide oil to the island.
MILLIONS LOSE POWER ACROSS CUBA AS TRUMP SANCTIONS CONTINUE TO FUEL ONGOING ENERGY CRISIS
People walk on the street during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, July 6, 2026. (Ramon Espinosa)
During Monday’s blackout, public transportation was largely halted, and officials said tens of thousands of surgeries were canceled nationwide, according to The Associated Press (AP).
Authorities later said one generating unit had resumed operations roughly two hours after the collapse.
“Microsystems are already operational throughout the country, to ensure protection for vital services,” the Electric Union said.
RUSSIAN ‘DARK FLEET’ TANKER BELIEVED TO BE DELIVERING OIL TO CUBA, DETECTED OFF US COAST AMID TRUMP BAN
A child walks with a bottle of oil past a solar panel set up on the street to charge batteries during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, July 6, 2026. (Ramon Espinosa)
The energy minister said officials were working to restore power while accusing the U.S. of contributing to Cuba’s energy struggles.
“Vital services continue to be protected, amidst this complex situation exacerbated by the energy blockade we face,” Vicente de la O Levy said.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel also blamed U.S. policies, describing the energy blockade as a “genocidal” measure imposed by Washington.
“While the U.S. tries to induce a social explosion through asphyxiation by blocking fuel access to #Cuba, the UNE mobilizes to reverse the SEN outage,” Díaz-Canel said, referring to Cuba’s National Electric Power System.
“What the electrical workers are doing in the midst of a genocidal energy blockade is heroic.”
A woman with her son signals a car on a dark street during a blackout in Bauta municipality, Artemisa province, Cuba, on March 18, 2024. (YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images)
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Cuba’s energy crisis intensified earlier this year after a U.S. military operation captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and halted Venezuelan oil exports, cutting off a key source of fuel for the island.
While Cuba produces only about 40% of the fuel it needs, a Russian tanker delivered roughly 730,000 barrels of oil to the country in March, supplies that were depleted by the end of April, according to The AP.
To conserve fuel, the Cuban government has imposed scheduled power outages that have lasted more than 24 consecutive hours in some areas, the outlet said.
A blackout in early March affected Cuba’s western provinces, while a separate outage in mid-March plunged the entire island into darkness.
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