By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
GAZA CITY/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – The United States carried out its first airdrop of aid for Gaza in the Israel-Hamas war with more than 30,000 meals parachuted by military aircraft, officials said Saturday.
Three American C-130 Hercules transport planes dumped the aid from the skies in cooperation with the Jordanian Air Force, the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) announced.
The airdrops add “to ongoing U.S. government efforts to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza,” CENTCOM stressed. “We are conducting planning for potential follow-on airborne aid delivery missions,” it added.
The U.S. Air Force cargo planes reportedly threw 66 pallets over southwest Gaza, containing more than 38,000 ready-to-eat meals.
Their mission came a day after U.S. President Biden said the United States would drop aid to Palestinians in Gaza, who he believes are in desperate need due to the Israel-Hamas war.
The armed conflict was triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7 in Israel that killed 1,200 people, including raped women and children.
Saturday’s aid drop comes two days after more than 100 Palestinians were allegedly killed when Israeli forces opened fire around a convoy of aid trucks in northern Gaza. Israel has denied it deliberately attacked civilian crowds, saying most were killed in a crush on aid convoys.
SMALLER GROUP
The Israel Defense Forces said soldiers only fired at a smaller, angry group that moved away from the trucks and threatened an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry suggested Thursday’s incident highlighted desperation due to widespread hunger.
It said the number of children who died from malnutrition and dehydration at hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip has risen to 10 due to a lack of aid in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Israel maintains that Hamas has misused convoys to carry weapons and troops and that much aid ended up with the group’s forces.
Gaza relied on a steady stream of 500 supply trucks daily, according to the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
That number averaged 150 daily in January and 97 per day in February, according to aid workers.
Israel has questioned the UNRWA’s intentions, saying staff members were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks.
AIRDROPS NO PANACEA
Yet U.S. officials caution that their airdrops are no panacea for the broader humanitarian crisis as they cannot move supplies at the scale of convoys.
Even big military cargo planes, like the C-130s used on Saturday, can carry only a fraction of the supplies a truck convoy would provide, according to U.S. officials with knowledge about the airdrops.
In addition, aid dropped on the ground is reportedly challenging to secure and distribute in an orderly way.
The United States still seeks to negotiate a pause in fighting that would allow regular aid deliveries via land to resume from neighboring Egypt.
It was not clear when the next airdrop might be, as poor weather was forecast for Gaza on Sunday, Worthy News learned.
However, the Hamas-run health ministry says it fears that without aid, the death toll will rise far above the more than 30,000 Palestinians it clans have died so far. It does not differentiate between civilians and Hamas fighters.
The number of deaths has been difficult to verify, but Israel says it killed more than “13,000 Hamas terrorists” in Gaza so far.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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