The Anomaly of the Gaza Campaign: The U.S. Central Command, Hamas, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders
“At the time, I said surely it can’t get any worse and then every week I’ve been proven wrong,” said Save the Children CEO Janti Soeripto. She said the number of trucks able to cross was as low as fewer than 25 some days, with Israel rejecting many trucks from crossing and sending others back without unloading after they were allowed to enter.
Israel’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N. Security Council said his government was committed to improving access at the Rafah border crossing and reactivating another land crossing at Kerem Shalom in Israel.
The United Nations, which has been unable to deliver aid into northern Gaza for more than a week due to the ongoing war between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas against the backdrop of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, made clear it was not involved.
Aid agencies and non-profits say they are prepared to send more aid to Gaza, but the supplies have been hard to get in.
“This situation is the direct result of the string of unconscionable decisions taken by Israeli authorities while waging this war: a relentless bombing and shelling campaign, a complete siege imposed on the enclave, the bureaucratic hurdles and lack of security mechanisms to ensure safe food distribution from southern to northern Gaza, the systematic destruction of livelihood capacities such as farming, herding and fishing,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement after the killings near the aid trucks.
Gaza is an anomaly — a densely populated territory with borders under foreign military control. A population weakened by five months of war is about to fall into famine because of Israel’s refusal to allow more aid.
This is likely why deliveries have been aimed at beaches, but sometimes, as with the airdrops by Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France, that results in aid falling into the sea. In the case of a Jordanian effort on Thursday, the wind carried some of the aid into Israel.
The flag of another Arab country on one of the pallets was blocked from being photographed by photographers because it was one of the countries involved in the air drops. The plane was on the tarmac when it developed mechanical problems, it was supposed to be participating in the air drop.
The U.S. Central Command said that the assistance was provided by the U.S. and Jordanian air forces.
On the tarmac at the King Abdullah II air base, there were more than one pallet waiting to be loaded onto a cargo plane. The meals, similar to military meals-Ready-to-Eat for a population with little fuel for cooking, featured Arab dishes including mansaf, the national dish of Jordan.
It was impossible to see where the parachute-equipped pallets of food landed over northern Gaza. The carefully planned flights performed with Israeli approval are still subject to change. Jordan’s military said while most of the pallets dropped Thursday landed in northern Gaza, the wind had blown one of them across the border into Israel.
Israel has barred foreign journalists from Gaza since the start of the war, except for rare instances when it has escorted them. That, along with disrupting phone and internet service, makes it extremely difficult to confirm what is happening on the ground. At the same time, Israeli strikes have killed at least 122 local journalists and media workers in Gaza since October, according to U.N. reports.
The U.K. foreign secretary, David Cameron, said in a statement Friday that in February only half the number of trucks crossed into Gaza as did in January, terming it “unacceptable.”
In a maternity ward in Gaza, she said, a Save the Children staffer told her that doctors were sending premature infants home to die because they didn’t have incubators to treat them. Aid groups say at least six children have died from maladaptive eating or from getting animal feed.
Gaza’s food crisis: Israel’s response to Hamas attacks on Gaza, a last resort for humanitarian relief to Palestinians there
The Israeli military says it has to search cars and trucks for weapons that could be used by Hamas, which launched an attack on Israel that killed over 1200 people. In response to the attack, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 30,000 civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
A Palestinian journalist in Gaza said that a lot of Palestinians were waiting for food at the exact spot where people were killed on Thursday.
Israel denies it’s blocking aid but aid groups say that Israel has presented so many obstacles to food shipments through the Rafah crossing that they have slowed to a trickle.
Salem said the crowd, desperate for food, dispersed when an Israeli tank appeared. They came back and grabbed the trucks after it retreated. He said that was when Israeli soldiers opened fire. The Israelis said it was using tanks to protect the convoy of private contractors.
Salem spends much of his day walking miles to find food for his family in Gaza. There is no food to buy for those with little or no money.
With most of Gaza’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, there are few ambulances and even fewer hospitals, all trying to operate without electricity or basic medical supplies. Salem was taken to the hospital in a horse-drawn cart.
Israel acknowledges that it fired in self-defense but says most of the people who died were killed by trucks or trampled on.
A man who was hit by a bullet while standing by a truck is being treated in Gaza City. I dropped to the ground and there was a shot that hit my hand.
Source: Aboard Jordan’s aid airdrop over Gaza, a last resort for relief to Palestinians there
Airdrops Cannot substitute for Humanitarian Access: The Case of the Jordanian Air Force Embedded in a Gaza Strip Strip
FLYING OVER NORTHERN GAZA STRIP — Seventeen-thousand feet in the air, Jordanian air force personnel are unhooking the chains to let pallets of wrapped cardboard boxes attached to parachutes roll out the cargo door.
President Biden on Friday said the U.S. would carry out airdrops in coming days, “redouble our efforts to open a maritime corridor, and expand deliveries by land.”
Some of the factors that determine the routes for aid to be taken in by land are border crossings, availability of drivers in Gaza who can receive the trucks and drive the supplies, as well as having clearance from the Israeli military for safe passage.
Following Biden’s announcement, the International Rescue Committee issued a statement saying that “airdrops do not and cannot substitute for humanitarian access.” The group called for unimpeded movement of aid to Gaza.
According to a report by the World Food Program in 2021, air drops, which costs seven times more than ground delivered aid, can deliver aid in smaller amounts, and require a significant amount of ground coordination in the delivery zone.
It is imperative that the drop zones are cleared and marked so that they are open, no smaller than a soccer field of at least 220 feet by 330 feet.
The type of aid being sent may be an issue. While no one believes that aid is better than aid, the International Committee of the Red Cross says that control of distribution is needed to ensure that people don’t risk their lives from eating the wrong aid.
It can pose serious risks to life if a person is suddenly given large quantities of food. These risks need to be weighed against delivering nothing by air, or the delay a ground distribution may incur,” it reads.