Extract from ABC News
While Palestinians inside Gaza face starvation, some Israelis are trying to stop supplies from getting into the besieged territory.
Protesters have been regularly blocking the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza as well as the Nitzana crossing between Israel and Egypt, where trucks come to be inspected by Israeli authorities.
Aid groups and the United Nations are warning of looming famine in Gaza, five months after Israel launched a retaliatory military campaign to eliminate Hamas from the coastal enclave.
In October last year, Hamas-led militants stormed across the border into southern Israel, killing hundreds of civilians and taking 253 hostages back into Gaza.
About 130 still remain in captivity, according to Israeli authorities.
But the demonstrators say no aid should go into Gaza while Hamas holds Israelis hostage.
"We don't want to give food to people who murdered our people, who take them hostage," one protester, who declined to give her name, told the ABC.
"The women are being abused, they've got no food, and we give food to Hamas?"
Praying, singing and snacking, a small group of about 40 people managed to stop an estimated 200 trucks crossing at Nitzana from Egypt on the day the ABC was there, according to crossing authorities.
They refer to the hostages as their "brothers" and say they should not be forgotten.
"We must strangle them so that they return my brothers," protester Tirza Nir said.
"What do I care about them? They are my enemy. They murdered my brothers."
How 'Order 9' blocks the delivery of aid
After watching the protest unfold, Israeli police tried to move the activists along.
Female police grabbed a girl who was refusing to leave the road.
"Are you giving to the enemy? Are you collaborating with the enemy? You are giving aid to the enemy," her friend shouted.
The police effort to move protesters was quickly abandoned when the protesters, without violence, simply refused to move.
A teenage girl was briefly detained and called a "heroine" when she was released.
She rejoined her friends and posed for photos.
Trucks queued up on the Egyptian side, but the Israeli crossing remained closed for the day while the protesters played backgammon with the border police and shared snacks among themselves.
The group calls itself "Order 9", named after the "Order 8" call-up notice sent to military reservists in Israel.
Founder Shlomi Sarid, an army reservist who fought in Gaza earlier in the war, said he wanted to set up a "special forces" type of group to stop aid because it could be used as a bargaining chip with Hamas.
"In the first ceasefire, we saw that the aid got to the hands of Hamas, but we were OK with that because every day we got 10 of our brothers back in our hands," he said.
"After I left Gaza, I found out that the aid to Hamas continues, while we aren't getting anything in exchange."
The UN said desperate Gazans and some criminal elements were taking the food before it could be distributed properly.
But it blamed the Israeli military, not Hamas, for failing to secure delivery routes.
Mr Sarid said the group had learnt how to evade and frustrate police, using tactics such as demanding eviction orders and using female demonstrators who must only be touched by female police.
"Besides the fact that I'm a combat soldier in reserves, I also volunteer with the Border Police," he said.
"I know very well the laws of the police. The police can't detain us here without showing us an order.
"[Also], we got here very, very early in the morning … and the police were in the middle of a briefing. We managed to get here before they got here. "
The desperate situation inside Gaza
The United Nations estimates 576,000 Palestinians in Gaza are at "catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation".
Hospitals are reporting children dying from the dehydration and disease associated with malnutrition.
Even the United States has resorted to parachuting food into Gaza.
The Palestinian death toll now stands at 30,800, according to the local health ministry.
But these activists said the looming famine was the price Gazans must pay for the October 7 terrorist attacks, in which 1,200 Israelis died.
"None of the people of Gaza, no-one is innocent," protester Galit Ohayon said.
"I'm not happy about people dying but I think it's a leverage that we have.
"So if there are kids dying, babies dying, people starving, they need to also do something to help themselves. So, give up Hamas."
These activists represent the views of some Israelis, but there are others who condemn their actions.
The Israeli and Palestinian group Standing Together held a counter-protest at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza two days later.
But unlike the anti-aid demonstrators of Order 9, they weren't able to reach the crossing.
"We have a truck full of food for the people starving in Gaza. The police and army won't let us get in," organiser Rula Daood said in a video posted on social media.
"There is no reason to let people starve in Gaza."
The UN said the crossing protests were affecting the entry of aid to Gaza.
"The frequent and prolonged closures and blockages at Kerem Shalom and Nitzana crossings have also significantly hampered the entry of humanitarian aid," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
The Israeli government said it was facilitating the entry of aid, with 225 trucks going into Gaza the day of the protest via the Kerem Shalom crossing.
"There is no limit to the amount of aid that can enter the Gaza Strip," government spokesman Eylon Levy said.
"In fact, Israel is encouraging donor states to send as much food, water, medicine and shelter equipment as they wish, and we will facilitate its entry into the Gaza Strip.
"The problem is distribution. The UN is struggling to distribute aid at the pace Israel is letting it in."
But UN groups said they faced continuing obstacles to delivering aid, including Israeli forces firing on them, the Israeli military killing the Gazan police escorting the convoys and desperate Gazans taking the food before it could be distributed.
The World Food Program also said its first attempt to deliver aid to northern Gaza in more than two weeks was blocked by the Israeli military.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied the World Food Program's allegations.
"The IDF observed enormous crowds in the area of the axis by which the convoy was intended to pass. Trucks aren't allowed to pass in the event that the axis is blocked by the population because it is unsafe," the IDF said in a statement to the ABC.
US President Joe Biden has announced the American military will construct a port in Gaza to get more humanitarian aid into the territory by sea.
"I'm directing the US military to lead a mission to establish a temporary period in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters," he said.
"A temporary period will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day."
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