On Saturday evening, the United States delivered additional food aid packs to the Gaza Strip, expanding its direct role in responding to a growing humanitarian emergency and underscoring the widening gap between Washington and Jerusalem over its approach to its conflict with Hamas.
The United States’ C-17 cargo aircraft departed
Officials from the United States stated that they are working on further airdrops into Gaza and exploring new ways to deliver much-needed aid into the Hamas-controlled enclave, including by sea.
Images released by U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the operation, showed bins full of ready-to-eat meals stacked on pallets onto U.S. military cargo planes. Photos captured by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversaw the operation, revealed stacks of ready-to-eat meals on pallets onto American military transportation aircraft. C-130 cargo planes. One official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details, said the assistance consisted of pork-free meals destined for the mostly Muslim population of Gaza. Jordanian cargo planes also unloaded aid alongside U.S. aircraft.
“The truth is that the aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere near adequate or fast enough,” a high-ranking government official told reporters after the airdrop occurred.
The operation, while welcomed by Gazans, occurs amid mounting friction between the Biden administration and its closest Middle Eastern allies over the war, as U.S. officials press Israel to help alleviate dire circumstances by opening additional land crossings to assist convoys and protect Israel’s military from moving forward with a offensive into Rafah, where millions of people are now trapped.
The carnage occurred several days after more than 100 people were killed and hundreds more wounded when a crowd descended on an IDF air convoy. Local officials blame the Israeli gunfire, while Israeli authorities claim there was a stampede. U.S. officials said that the airdrop was already in progress when that happened.
Officials stated they were not coordinating the distribution of the aid with Hamas or any other groups on the ground. They said they had watched the aftermath of the drops and had seen civilians approaching them, bundled into 66 total bundles that were dropped in locations where the United States. According to a source, Palestinian militants are thought to be hiding.
The number of assistance trucks entering Gaza has decreased sharply in recent weeks after Israel’s military targeted police that had been guarding the convoys. The scarce availability of assistance adds to the dangers in a conflict that Palestinian officials say has already killed at least 30,000 people, mostly women and children.
While aid groups say at least 500 trucks are required every day in order to meet Gazans’ fundamental needs, the United Nations has said just dozens or fewer have acquired admittance in recent months. That has coincided with efforts to restrict funding for the UN. Relief and Works Agency UNWRA, some of whose employees Israeli officials said took part in the Oct 7 assaults, is one of many organisations where its employees have taken part in the terrorist attacks.
A senior U.N. official earlier this week called airdrops – which Jordan started conducting on a larger scale this week – as a “last resort, extremely costly” way to get assistance into Gaza.
Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for Israel’s military, said the joint U.S.-Jordanian operation was “an effort that makes our fighting in Gaza possible.”
U.S. authorities did not blame Israel for the amount of humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza on Saturday, despite administration officials’ private grumblings about Israel’s role in the matter. They have said that far-right cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, including national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and finance minister Bezal Smotrich, have come up with ways to ensure that aid deliveries become more difficult.
According to a second U.S. officer who spoke to reporters, a chief concern was not getting supplies trucks into Gaza but rather distributing assistance, mainly because, without police escorts, the convoys were now targets for criminal groups. They also blamed Hamas for creating conditions that slowed the delivery of assistance and weaving military targets into Gaza’s landscape and culture.
Officials said they are looking into various possibilities for providing more aid shipments via sea, possibly via commercial vessels. However, they indicated that only by providing additional land crossings would there be enough help to avert famine.
“None of these maritime routes or airdrops are an alternative to the basic need to deliver assistance through as many land crossings as possible,” the second official remarked.
From Tel Aviv, Itay Stern contributed. Victoria Bisset and Helier Cheung contributed from London; and Mohamad El Chamaa contributed from Beirut.
Israel-Gaza war
Following Thursday’s incident, more than 100 people were killed in the Gaza Strip. In Palestinian territory and eyewitness accounts, Palestinian officials blame their deaths on Israeli gunfire. President Joe Biden said on Friday that the US would launch an airdrop campaign to deliver aid to Gaza.
As the Israel Defence Forces aim to take control of the Gaza-Egypt border crossing, Egyptian officials in Cairo warn that the move would violate the 1979 peace agreement. Meanwhile, there’s a diplomatic effort to prevent all-out war between Israel and Lebanon.
The following text is a paraphrase of the following text: The following quotation is an excerpt from the quotations that follow. Airstrikes in Iraq and Syria killed dozens of Iranian-linked militants, according to Iraqi officials. The strikes were the first round of retaliatory action by the Biden administration for an attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. personnel. Members of the military.
- Delivery of aid in chaotic circumstances becomes deadly as Israeli, Gazan authorities trade blame.
- According to officials in the Gaza Strip, killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar inside his hiding place in Gaza risks hostages, according to Hamas sources.
- U.S. to launch airdrop campaign over Gaza, Biden says, as humanitarian crisis worsens “The United States will launch an airdrop campaign over Gaza, President Joe Biden says, as humanitarian tragedy worsens.
