DUBAI — For the second consecutive week, relief convoys organized under the UAE’s Operation Chivalrous Knight 3 crossed into Gaza through Egypt’s El Arish crossing, carrying supplies through a ceasefire corridor that has allowed more consistent humanitarian access than at any point since the conflict’s start. Five convoys, comprising 59 trucks and 792 tonnes of supplies, entered the Gaza Strip over the past seven days, the Emirates News Agency reported Sunday.
The tonnage arrived as independent monitors continue to document acute malnutrition levels inside Gaza that humanitarian organizations say require sustained, high-volume flows to reverse. Fifty-nine trucks over a week amounts to fewer than nine trucks a day; the United Nations has said the territory requires several hundred trucks of supplies daily to meet the minimum needs of its population.
Operation Chivalrous Knight 3 is the UAE’s primary humanitarian response channel to Gaza since the ceasefire took effect. Aid is prepared and loaded at the UAE Humanitarian Aid Logistics Centre in El Arish, a facility established to coordinate the receipt, sorting, and dispatch of supplies to the Gaza crossings. The operation runs on a continuous dispatch model rather than periodic airlifts, pushing convoys through as crossing conditions permit.
The humanitarian framework behind the convoys rests on UN Security Council Resolution 2803, adopted in November 2025 to formalize the peace plan agreed between Israel and Hamas in October. That resolution required all parties to facilitate unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid and established compliance monitoring mechanisms. The current weekly delivery rate is one measure of how that obligation is being met in practice.
Gaza’s humanitarian situation remains severe under the ceasefire. As of June, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification projected that at least 132,000 children under five in the Gaza Strip would face acute malnutrition between June and September 2026, with roughly 41,000 at the severe level. Those figures were compiled while deliveries remained at a fraction of what UN agencies assessed as necessary.
The UAE has maintained a consistent humanitarian presence throughout the conflict period while also keeping its diplomatic posture distinct. In May, Abu Dhabi publicly rejected Israeli characterizations of covert diplomatic contacts, signaling that aid operations were not functioning as a bridge for normalization talks. Operation Chivalrous Knight 3’s continued uninterrupted operation through the ceasefire reflects the stated UAE policy of treating humanitarian access as a separate track from political negotiations.
What the Emirates News Agency’s report does not specify is what the 792 tonnes consist of, whether food, medicine, or shelter materials, or whether the supplies have cleared distribution points and reached civilians inside Gaza. The gap between what is arriving weekly and what UN agencies say Gaza needs to recover from two-plus years of conflict remains the unanswered measure of how far the ceasefire corridor has actually opened.
