The United Nations has said it has "dispatched" around 90 trucks carrying much-needed aid into Gaza, but the food and medicines are not reaching everyone due to the Israeli interference.

The aid distribution on Wednesday was the first in Gaza since early March and follows a global hue and cry over the Israeli blockade that has already killed hundreds because of malnutrition.

Reports from Gaza say that 87 aid trucks were allocated to international and local organisations to meet "urgent humanitarian needs".

Nahed Shahiber, the president of the association of private transport companies in Gaza, told Anadolu that among the trucks, 75 entered carrying flour for bakeries in the central and southern governorates through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the southern part of Gaza.

Shahiber confirmed that there is no coordination for aid trucks to enter Gaza City and North Gaza governorate via the Netzarim corridor, as the army is preventing truck movement through it.

He said 12 trucks were loaded with nutritional supplements for children that UNICEF is going to disperse, and their cargo was offloaded in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

TRT World correspondent in Gaza has reported that though aid trucks have entered the Palestinian enclave, aid distribution is only partially allowed as Israel’s occupying army in Gaza has marked several areas as ‘unsafe’ for the movement of vehicles, thus hampering the aid distribution.

‘A drop in the bucket’

Gaza requires a minimum of 500 trucks daily carrying urgent relief and medical and food aid, along with at least 50 fuel trucks, as life-saving necessities amid a worsening famine caused by Israel’s closure of border crossings for over two months, Palestinian officials say.

Earlier, UN humanitarian office (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke said only five aid trucks had entered Gaza by Tuesday afternoon, and aid workers had not been granted permission to distribute the supplies.

Since March 2, two million Palestinians have been starved by the Israeli blockade, and the distribution of minuscule quantities of aid has become problematic.

“90 trucks for a population of two million Palestinians is a drop in the bucket, and the distribution of this small quantity is problematic,” a TRT World correspondent reporting from Gaza says.

A looming famine

OCHA chief Tom Fletcher told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die in the next 48 hours if aid trucks did not reach communities in the enclave.

Since March 2, Israel has kept Gaza crossings closed to food, medical, and humanitarian aid, deepening an already severe humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), hundreds of thousands of Palestinians eat only one meal every two or three days amid Israel’s crippling blockade.

Nearly 500,000 people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger, according to a report released by 17 UN agencies and NGOs.

Medics have warned that if the aid situation in Gaza does not improve, a famine is a near possibility.

According to Gaza authorities, Israel’s 80-day blockade enforced a strict closure of crossings and blocked aid deliveries, resulting in nearly 330 deaths and more than 300 miscarriages due to malnutrition amid what it described as a campaign of genocide.