The UN humanitarian affairs office has reported that Israel has approved the entry of around 100 aid trucks into Gaza — far short of the estimated 500 trucks needed daily to meet the besieged enclave’s overwhelming humanitarian needs.

"We have requested and received approval of more trucks to enter today, many more than were approved yesterday," Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

"And we expect, of course, with that approval, many of them, hopefully, all of them to cross today to a point where they can be picked up and get further into Gaza for distribution," Laerke said.

When asked for a specific number, he said the figure was "around 100." According to the UN, Gaza needs at least 500 aid trucks per day to meet the population’s basic needs.

The announcement came a day after just nine aid trucks were cleared for entry into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing on Monday – a number that OCHA and other aid groups have repeatedly said is far below what is needed to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of Gaza's population.

Of the nine trucks cleared Monday, Laerke said only five were actually able to move into Gaza due to logistical challenges at the crossing.

“Out of those nine, five of them actually crossed into Gaza … for logistical reasons. Four of them were not able to enter,” he said, explaining that the crossing involves a complex transfer process. “As you know, the crossing has different stages, and there is a repacking … from one set of trucks to another set of trucks before it can move in.”

Thousands of trucks of aid ‘ready to go’, five allowed

Even the five trucks that crossed on Monday have yet to be fully released for delivery, Laerke noted, due to ongoing control measures by Israeli authorities.

"So it moved from different levels of Israeli control. The last level where the five trucks entered are still under Israeli control, and we need permission to pick it up."

That permission had not been granted as of Monday, but Laerke said the situation changed Tuesday morning.

"This morning, we do have the permission to collect those five trucks. That is as much as I know right now. We do have the permission to collect those trucks, and we do have permission to collect more trucks that may enter today," he said.

OCHA and other humanitarian organisations have consistently called for safe, sustained, and large-scale access into Gaza, where food, medicine, and fuel remain in critically short supply.

OCHA chief Tom Fletcher, earlier Tuesday, told BBC's Radio 4 Today programme that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die in the next 48 hours if aid trucks do not reach communities in the enclave.

Fletcher noted that thousands of trucks of aid, which contain "baby food and nutrition," are "ready to go" amid ongoing Israeli restrictions.

Aid for Gaza '3 hours away' but stuck in Jordan

Surrounded by stockpiles of humanitarian supplies, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) Louise Wateridge described the dire disconnect between urgent needs in Gaza and aid stuck just hours away.

Participating in the UN briefing in Geneva online from Amman, Jordan, she said: "There's more food here for, you know, 200,000 people for an entire month. There's medicines to keep all of UNRWA nine health centres functioning and 38 medical points functioning. That's enough medical care for 1.6 million people. There's hygiene kits, enough here for 200,000 families, blankets for 200,000 families, and learning supplies for 375,000 children."

Regarding the agency’s warehouses inside Gaza, Wateridge said she received this morning footage from her colleagues which shows "everything's empty."

She added that the UNRWA not only has supplies in Amman but also in other hubs, including Egypt.

"The situation is absurd. It's appalling, and to be quite frank, it's unforgivable. All of these supplies that are around me are literally three hours away from Gaza. They could be there this afternoon," she concluded.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing nearly 53,600 Palestinians, most of them women and children.