The UN Security Council has underscored the need to protect civilians in Gaza where more than 100 desperate Palestinians waiting for at a food convoy were killed on Thursday after Israeli forces opened fire. Several hundred others were injured. The 15 Council members issued a statement late Saturday expressing their deep concern, noting that an Israeli investigation was underway.<\/p>\n
They extended their sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a swift and complete recovery to the wounded. Meanwhile, according to media reports, United States military cargo planes Sunday air-dropped food into Gaza, in the first of series of aid drops as humanitarian groups criticize Israel for blocking access to the besieged and bombarded strip. However, experts called airdrops the worst way to deliver aid. Since Israel\u2019s war began on October 7 following Hamas\u2019s attack, Israel has barred the entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies, except for a tiny trickle of aid entering the south from Egypt at the Rafah crossing and Israel\u2019s Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing. In its statement, the Council stressed the need to take all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, adding that all parties to conflicts must comply with their obligations under international law. Parties were urged to refrain from depriving civilians in Gaza of basic services and humanitarian assistance. The Council expressed grave concern that the entire population, more than two million people, could face alarming levels of acute food insecurity. Members reiterated their demand for parties \u201cto allow, facilitate, and enable the immediate, rapid, safe, sustained and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip\u201d. They urged Israel to keep border crossings open for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, to facilitate the opening of additional crossings to meet humanitarian needs at scale, and to support the rapid and safe delivery of relief items to people across the enclave. On its airdrop missions, the US used C-130 transport aircraft which sent down more than 38,000 meals along Gaza\u2019s Mediterranean coastline, a move which elicited strong criticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou only resort to [airdrops] when there is something on the ground blocking you from using better forms of transportation,\u201d Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former disaster relief official in the [former US President Barack] Obama and [US President Joe] Biden administrations, told Al Jazeera. \u201cThey\u2019re very expensive, they\u2019re dangerous because there\u2019s a lot that can go wrong when things drop and they deliver a very small volume of aid. Relative to the level of need that exists in Gaza today, this is not enough to make a meaningful dent in the humanitarian crisis.\u201d \u201cYou have to ask, why is this necessary? Well, it\u2019s necessary because over the last nearly five months, the Israeli military offensive has made it virtually impossible for normal humanitarian operations to exist in Gaza,\u201d Konyndyk added. \u201cThey could be opening more border crossings \u2013 they have refused to do that. Even the two crossings in the south that are open have seen their volumes decline in the last few weeks. And they\u2019ve made it very difficult for humanitarian groups to operate within Gaza \u2013 there have been air strikes on humanitarian facilities, there was a naval strike on a UN food convoy heading to the north that was actually [previously] stopped at an Israeli checkpoint at the time.\u201d \u201cSo this resort to air strikes is a reflection of how impossible the Israeli government has made it to conduct normal and frankly more effective humanitarian operations inside Gaza.\u201d US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the US will carry out multiple airdrops in the next few weeks, which will be coordinated with Jordan. Kirby said the airdrops have an advantage over trucks because planes can move aid to a particular area quickly. However, in terms of volume, the airdrops will be \u201ca supplement to, not a replacement for moving things in by ground\u201d, he added. The Biden administration is also considering shipping aid by sea from Cyprus, according to a US official. But US\u2019s move has ben called \u201cinefficient and simply a public relations move by members of international aid organizations.\u201d \u201cThe airdrops are symbolic and designed in ways to appease the domestic base,\u201d Dave Harden, former USAID director to the West Bank, said. \u201cReally what needs to happen is more crossings [opening] and more trucks going in every day.\u201d \u201cI think the United States is weak and that\u2019s really disappointing to me,\u201d Harden added. \u201cThe US has the ability to compel Israel to open up more aid and by not doing that we\u2019re putting our assets and our people at risks and potentially creating more chaos in Gaza.\u201d UK-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) echoed Harden\u2019s statement, saying that the US, the UK and others should instead work to \u201censure that Israel immediately opens all crossings into Gaza for aid.\u201d Oxfam also blasted the Biden administration\u2019s plans, labelling the effort an attempt to assuage the guilty consciences of US officials. \u201cWhile Palestinians in Gaza have been pushed to the absolute brink, dropping a paltry, symbolic amount of aid into Gaza with no plan for its safe distribution would not help and be deeply degrading to Palestinians,\u201d Scott Paul, who leads Oxfam\u2019s US government advocacy work, said in a statement on X. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also criticized the US for acting as a \u201cweak, marginal state\u201d unable to secure aid to Palestinians. US Senator Bernie Sanders, however, welcomed the US\u2019s move. \u201cI applaud President Biden for understanding that there is a dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza,\u201d Sanders said on X. Mahjoob Zweiri, the director of the Gulf Study Centre in Doha, said the international community is not putting enough pressure on Israel to allow the waiting aid trucks to enter Gaza by land. \u201cWhy not send food in through Karem Abu Salem?\u201d Zweiri said. \u201cThere are 2,000 trucks waiting to get into Gaza\u201d at border crossings, he said, while food and medicines pile up for months past their expiry dates. \u201cWhy is the international community not putting enough effort into delivering aid in an organized manner?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UN Security Council has underscored the need to protect civilians in Gaza where more than 100 desperate Palestinians waiting for at a food convoy were killed on Thursday after Israeli forces opened fire. Several hundred others were injured. The 15 Council members issued a statement late Saturday expressing their deep concern, noting that an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-391332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n