USA’s Humanitarian Airdrop Aid!
New York, US, Mar 2 (EFE).-
The United States on Saturday completed its first airdrop of humanitarian aid in Gaza through three military aircraft that distributed about 38,000 meals, the US Central Command announced through its social media accounts.
The delivery was made in conjunction with the Royal Jordanian Air Force, which had already airdropped food earlier in the week, and the US used three C130 aircraft to drop 66 parachuted bundles of food along Gaza’s coast.
The food packages did not include water or medical supplies, according to CNN.
Humanitarian organizations say these airdrops fall far short of the food and supplies needed in the area, where more than 2 million people are at risk of starvation.
Carl Skau, World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director, told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that food aid is currently required by almost the entire population of 2.2 million people in Gaza and 500,000 people are at risk of famine.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden announced that packages of food and medicine would be airdropped into Gaza and raised the possibility of creating a maritime corridor to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
“Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough. Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line. We won’t stand by until we get more aid in there. We should be getting hundreds of trucks in, not just several,” the president said at the start of a White House meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in a statement in which he initially confused Gaza with Ukraine.
The United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France, Jordan, and Britain have already carried out airdrops of food into the Palestinian enclave.
In nearly five months of war, more than 30,200 people have died in the Strip, including 115 Gazans who died Thursday in a chaotic food distribution incident in Gaza City in which Israel has admitted opening fire but blamed the deaths on a stampede caused by hungry crowds rushing the trucks.
Since the war began on Oct. 7, Israel has prevented the entry of food, water, medicine, and other supplies into Gaza, except for a trickle of aid, arguing that Hamas would take over any supplies that enter its territory. The policy has been called a “war crime” by Human Rights Watch. EFE
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