The US Air Force, in collaboration with the Jordanian Air Force, began airdropping food aid on Saturday, March 2. The US administration announced that it had dropped about 38,000 meals in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israel has imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, bombing it from the land, sea and air and cutting off power, food and water. The situation is particularly dramatic in northern Gaza, where aid trucks are now allowed to access.
Moreover, on February 29, Israeli forces opened fire and shelled crowds awaiting humanitarian aid convoys at the Al-Nabulsi roundabout, in Gaza City, killing and wounding nearly 1,000 Palestinians.
Egypt, France, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates have participated in aid airdrops to Gaza in recent days, but experts say they are inefficient and expensive.
Additionally, part of the meals have fallen into the sea or in the so-called Gaza envelope.
The Palestine Chronicle spoke to some residents of Gaza. They all agreed on the only possible solution: stopping the war and opening all crossings.
Israel’s Siege on Gaza – Children Die from Starvation, Get Poisoned by Animal Feed
A Small Percentage
Mohammed Al-Hams is a resident of the city of Rafah. He told the Palestine Chronicle that its population “has multiplied by more than five times, due to the influx of displaced people fleeing from Israeli bombardment.”
“We were surprised on Saturday morning by the airdrop of aid on the city of Rafah. The United States dropped 38,000 meals, while the number of displaced people in the city of Rafah exceeds one and a half million. This means that what was dropped was not even enough for 5 percent of the displaced people,” he said.
Ahmed al-Salehi is worried that the aid will not reach northern Gaza.
“We expected the food aid to be dropped on Gaza City and the northern governorates of the Gaza Strip, but we were surprised by the dropping of a very small batch on Rafah City,” he told us.
“The residents of the northern Gaza Strip need it the most. While famine is spreading in all areas of the Gaza Strip, the residents of Gaza and the north are the most needy at this time,” al-Salehi added.
Shadi Dasht told The Palestine Chronicle that “the American aid drops cannot make the people of Gaza forget that the United States is the biggest partner and supporter of Israel in its war on the Gaza Strip.”
“The people of Gaza want the US to stop its military aid to the occupation forces, which is much more important than dropping a few food aids,” he said.
Completely besieged by the Israeli army, the only hope for the starving population of Gaza are a few aid packages dropped from the skype.
The Palestine Chronicle camera captured this footage of children and their parents gazing at the skype as an airplane hovered over their… pic.twitter.com/inRZ1PVfMo
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) March 2, 2024
‘Open the Crossings’
Sahar Hussein told us that “the US is capable of pressuring the occupation and delivering aid through the Gaza crossings.”
“People in Gaza need flour, sugar, and essential supplies, which must be brought in through the Gaza crossings,” he explained.
Ahmed Abu Hamda told us that “Delivering aid through the Gaza crossings is much easier than dropping it from the air.”
“The US must stand by its responsibilities and stop its continuous military support for Israel. It should pressure the occupation to end the war and deliver aid,” he said, adding that “everyone must work to save the children of Gaza from the war of starvation and the continuous bombardment that has not stopped for the last five months.”
“The world is currently facing a real test of its humanity,” Abu Hamda said:
“Either it works to stop the war, or it continues to support Israel in the genocide we are facing in Gaza. We want to stop the war. We want to provide food for our children. We want to live in safety and peace. We dream of having an independent state. We dream of a beautiful future for our children.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Abdallah Aljamal is a Gaza-based journalist. He is a correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle in the Gaza Strip. His email is abdallahaljamal1987@gmail.com
Extremely shameful how the genocidal U.S. government flagrantly pretends that it’s doing everything it can possibly do to save the civilians of Gaza from Israel’s all-out campaign of starvation against them, by dropping a few measly truckloads of humanitarian aid from the sky (at a minimum, the civilians of Gaza are in need of six hundred truckloads of humanitarian aid per day). If it really wanted to, the genocidal U.S. government could immediately end the starvation campaign against Gaza within a couple hours.