Can food airdrops avert mass starvation in beleaguered Gaza?

Sources within the humanitarian aid sector say that in the claimed absence of any alternative, the use of airdrops and the planned pier in Gaza will at least bring some relief. (AFP)
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Updated 13 March 2024
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Can food airdrops avert mass starvation in beleaguered Gaza?

  • Enclave has endured months of bombardment and effective siege since Israel launched air-and-ground invasion
  • Opinion divided on whether ongoing airdrops by the US and five Arab countries can make a dent in the problem

LONDON: The US and its Arab allies appear to have finally circumvented the biggest obstructions in the path of food-aid flow to the neediest residents of the Gaza Strip. But averting a humanitarian disaster is still a work in progress.

With Israel proving unable or unwilling to facilitate the entry of aid by road to the beleaguered enclave, the US has begun efforts to bring relief to the millions of Palestinians on the brink of starvation.

Gaza has endured months of bombardment and effective siege since Israel launched an air-and-ground invasion in retaliation for the deadly Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7. According to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, some 30,500 Palestinians have been killed, 70,500 injured and 7,000 have gone missing since the violence began.

News that the US would begin airdrops of food and other supplies over Gaza came on the very day 100 Palestinians were killed by gunfire as they tried to reach a relief convoy. Israel denied that its forces were responsible for all the deaths, but the incident convinced the US and its Arab partners that they had to step in.




The WFP said that just six tons of aid were airdropped over Gaza last week, against 200 tons that sat in a 14-truck convoy waiting to be let through by Israel. (AFP)

President Joe Biden described the loss of life as “heart-breaking,” adding that the desperation of innocent people caught up in the war was starkly portrayed by the incident involving the relief convoy.

Biden said: “You saw the response when they tried to get aid in. And we need to do more, and the US will do more. In the coming days, we are going to join with our friends in Jordan and others in providing airdrops of additional food and supplies.”

Several days after this, the US added to its airdrop strategy a proposal to build a temporary dock on the northern Gaza coast to ferry provisions in from Cyprus by sea — an Israeli-approved humanitarian maritime corridor connecting the territory with the Mediterranean country.

That announcement, part of Biden’s final State of the Union address before the November elections, saw the US president promise that the pier, to be constructed by the US military, would allow Gaza to “receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters.”




A military plane drops humanitarian aid over northern Gaza. (AFP)

Promising “no US boots on the ground,” Biden said that the pier “would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.”

While the promises have been clear, the details surrounding them have been opaque, with no information given on how much aid the US and its allies intend to airdrop over the Palestinian territory.

Indeed, the pledge to construct a pier has raised a number of important questions. Number one is how the aid would be distributed, given the US pledge that none of its troops would set foot on Gazan soil.

Gershon Baskin, Middle East director for the International Communities Organization, says the need for a partner on the ground could present its own future challenges, particularly with Israel representing the only viable option.

“I think with the vacuum of governance, the Israeli government has a responsibility to take this on and to protect the aid,” he told Arab News.

“If it does not want relief materials to be cornered by Hamas, then the Israeli government needs to be doing the protecting. And this might all happen, but that, in turn, brings the danger of creating an Israeli military government in Gaza. This is not something you want long term.”




Seven countries are involved in the operation to airdrop aid to the people in Gaza. (AFP)

Biden’s SOTU address suggested that he expected Israeli authorities to take on the security role, especially when he said the country “must also do its part.”

He added: “To the leadership of Israel, I say, humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.”

Media reports on Monday said that Israel was considering arming some Palestinian individuals or clans in Gaza to provide security protection for aid convoys into the enclave as part of wider planning for the supply of humanitarian relief after the fighting ends.

INNUMBERS

7 — Countries taking part in Gaza food airdrop operations.

2.2m — People in crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity in Gaza.

1.4m — People reached since the start of the current crisis.

$760m — Money needed for WFP operations until end of 2024.

Source: WFP

Soon afterward, a Hamas-linked website warned Palestinian individuals or groups against cooperating with Israel to provide security for aid convoys.

A senior US official said that the Biden plan for a US-built pier could become operational with or without Israel’s cooperation.




According to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, some 30,500 Palestinians have been killed, 70,500 injured and 7,000 have gone missing since the violence began. (AFP)

“The president directed that we look at all options, that we don’t wait for the Israelis and that we pursue every channel possible to get assistance into Gaza,” the official told Arab News.

For weeks, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an American commentator on Gaza affairs brought up in Gaza City, had advocated via X for air dropping aid into the enclave, tagging everyone from President Biden to World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain.

In a post on March 2, Alkhatib, who calls himself “a pragmatic realist,” wrote: “Stop Dismissing Gaza Food Airdrops! When I first began putting together talking points and ideas for a big push to conduct food airdrops over Gaza in late December of 2023, I reached out to many pro-Palestine activists, advocates and experts in the humanitarian field.

He added: “Airdrops are typically considered a method of last resort due to their associated costs and general inefficiency from planes’ limited cargo delivery capacity compared to ships or trucks.

“But over time, and as I continued pushing, writing and engaging multiple parties and nations, many opened up to the idea of dispersed large-scale airdrops over Gaza, particularly in the isolated and famished north. This led to the large airdrops by Jordan, Egypt and the UAE, paving the way for the US to embrace this option.”

Sources within the humanitarian aid sector say that in the claimed absence of any alternative, the use of airdrops and the planned pier in Gaza will at least bring some relief.

However, they told Arab News that there are viable alternatives to air and sea aid.




US aircraft as part of a joint operation with Jordan and Egypt have been involved in delivering aid to Palestinians. (AFP)

One option popular with aid groups and NGOS seen as vital to staving off looming mass starvation is for the Israelis to remove all impediments to the flow of aid by trucks into Gaza.

While welcoming the Biden administration’s proposed sea corridor, Sigrid Kaag, the UN’s humanitarian, and reconstruction coordinator in Gaza, said that “air and sea is not a substitute for land — and nobody says otherwise.”

Similarly, a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees spokesperson said: “The most straightforward way of getting aid into the Gaza Strip is to use the existing (road) crossings.”

The UN and the World Food Programme have warned that “if nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza.”

Ghina Bou Chacra, a spokesperson for Amnesty International, made it clear that what was needed was for Israel to lift its blockade on the entry of aid trucks.

“Israeli authorities have time and time again refused to take steps to ensure adequate access to humanitarian aid in Gaza,” Chacra told Arab News.




The amount of aid that can be dispensed by truck dwarfs what Palestinians in Gaza are seeing being dropped from the skies. (AFP)

“They must open all the access points and crossings to enable humanitarian organizations to transfer aid more rapidly into Gaza.

“They must do this on an even larger scale to areas in need and also ensure that humanitarian operations are protected from military attacks.”

Chacra added: “The roads are accessible and there are hundreds of trucks full of humanitarian aid at Gaza’s border (with Egypt) waiting for Israeli clearance.”

Without details on the movement of aid by sea, it is hard to compare, but when looking at air and road, the amount of aid that can be dispensed by truck dwarfs what Palestinians in Gaza are seeing being dropped from the skies.




Palestinians run toward food parcels airdropped onto a Gazan beach. (AFP)

The WFP said that just six tons of aid were airdropped over Gaza last week, against 200 tons that sat in a 14-truck convoy waiting to be let through by Israel.

Both Chacra and Jamie Shea, associate fellow of the International Security Programme at Chatham House, described the airdrops as a wasteful and inefficient means of dispersing aid.

Chacra further cautioned that the strategy was “potentially dangerous,” just hours before news broke that five people had been killed and 10 injured in Gaza after being hit by a pallet of aid.

The accident occurred close to the enclave’s Al-Shati coastal refugee camp on March 8, with reports claiming the pallet struck a group of men and children — who were awaiting its arrival on the ground — after the parachute attached to the aid payload failed to deploy.

“Humanitarian organizations have repeatedly warned that air drops should only ever be used as a last resort — when delivery by road or sea is impossible,” Chacra said.




News that the US would begin airdrops of food and other supplies over Gaza came on the very day 100 Palestinians were killed by gunfire as they tried to reach a relief convoy. (AFP)

According to Alkhatib, the Palestinian-American commentator, “large-scale airdrops over Gaza are requiring the use of hundreds of parachutes like nothing we’ve seen in recent years, presenting a host of challenges that are gradually being overcome and addressed.”

Shea suggested that in the absence of good alternatives, the US could try something like the 1948 Berlin airlift, when, with its European allies, Washington flew hundreds of planes loaded with aid to Tempelhof Airport to feed the West Berlin population and force the USSR to end its blockade of the city.

“Stalin did not shoot at US planes and the only casualties were from forced landings. It would require Western or Arab troops on the ground to unload and service aircraft, protect the airport from looters and store food prior to distribution,” Shea said.

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“Simply dropping off the food and supplies directly to the civilian population would undoubtedly lead to much of it ending up in the hands of the black market or Hamas.”

Echoing the view of many analysts, Shea said that with Biden under political pressure at home, the airdrops were certainly “a good way of showing to Democratic Party voters that the US cares about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and is putting pressure on the Israelis to seriously address this dire situation.”

Moreover, he said, as supplies start to arrive in Gaza via airdrops, the flow of aid — no matter how insufficient — is giving Israel a “safety valve.”




Over 2 million Palestinians are facing acute food insecurity in Gaza. (AFP)

He added: “In sharing the responsibility with other countries, Israel is suddenly not under pressure to open its border with Gaza in a way to allow significant humanitarian supplies through.”

Meanwhile, in a post on Monday on X, Alkhatib said: “Despite being inadequate on multiple levels, in 99 percent of the time, food that’s airdropped over Gaza gets immediately collected by civilians in desperate need; part of the reason why Hamas hates airdrops is because there are limited to no opportunities for the group to steal aid.”


Egypt says 17 missing after Red Sea tourist boat capsizes

Updated 10 sec ago
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Egypt says 17 missing after Red Sea tourist boat capsizes

  • Governor Amr Hanafi said that some survivors were rescued by an aircraft, while others were transported to safety aboard a warship

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities said 17 people including British nationals and other foreigners were missing after a tourist yacht capsized off the country’s Red Sea coast on Monday, with 28 others rescued.
The vessel, which was carrying 31 tourists of various nationalities and a 14-member crew, sent out a distress call at 5:30 am (0330 GMT), said a statement from Egypt’s Red Sea governorate.
An AFP tally confirmed that tourists involved in the incident include nationals from the UK, China, Finland, Poland and Spain.
The “Sea Story” embarked on Sunday on a multi-day diving trip from Port Ghalib near Marsa Alam in the southeast, and had been due to dock on Friday at the town of Hurghada, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north.
Governor Amr Hanafi said that some survivors were rescued by an aircraft, while others were transported to safety aboard a warship.
“Intensive search operations are underway in coordination with the navy and the armed forces,” Hanafi added in a statement.
Authorities have not confirmed the nationalities of the tourists.
Beijing’s embassy in Egypt said two of its nationals were “in good health” after being “rescued in the cruise ship sinking accident in the Red Sea,” Chinese state media reported.
The Finnish foreign ministry confirmed to AFP that one of its nationals is missing.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski said authorities “have information that two of the tourists may have had Polish citizenship.”
“That’s all we know about them. That’s all we can say for now,” he told national news agency PAP.The Red Sea governor’s office did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment about the possible cause of the accident.
According to a manager of a diving resort close to the rescue operation, one surviving crew member said they were “hit by a wave in the middle of the night, throwing the vessel on its side.”
Authorities in the Red Sea capital of Hurghada on Sunday shut down marine activities and the city’s port due to “bad weather conditions.”
But winds around Marsa Alam had remained favorable until Sunday night, the diving manager told AFP, before calming again by morning.
By Monday afternoon, it became increasingly “unlikely that the 17 missing would be rescued after 12 hours in the water,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The Marsa Alam area saw at least two similar boat accidents earlier this year but there were no fatalities.
The Red Sea coast is a major tourist destination in Egypt, a country of 105 million that is in the grip of a serious economic crisis. Nationally, the tourism sector employs two million people and generates more than 10 percent of GDP.
Dozens of dive boats criss-cross between coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast every day, where safety regulations are robust but unevenly enforced.
Earlier this month, 30 people were rescued from a sinking dive boat near the Red Sea’s Daedalus reef.
In June, two dozen French tourists were evacuated safely before their boat sank in a similar accident.
Last year, three British tourists died when a fire broke out on their yacht, engulfing it in flames.


Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

Updated 25 November 2024
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Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

  • Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward”

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel is moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism of a deal soon even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, and that Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward.” Asked for comment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had nothing to say about the report.
Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut — while the Iran-backed Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
In Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.
Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington.
“We are moving in the direction toward a deal, but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said, without elaborating.
Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told Israel’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days ... We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.
In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and expressed cautious optimism. “The balance is slightly tilted toward there being (an agreement), but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,” he said in a news conference.
A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress.”
The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.

ENFORCEMENT
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.
“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel must press on with the war until “absolute victory.” Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!“
But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel should reach an agreement in Lebanon. “If we say ‘no’ to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,” he told journalists.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in Israel’s hands.
Branded a terrorist group by the United States, the heavily armed, Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has endorsed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the Shiite Amal movement to negotiate.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel’s offensive has forced more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the regular Lebanese army to deploy into the frontier region.


Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister

Updated 25 November 2024
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Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister

  • ICC issued arrest warrants on Thursday against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
  • Several EU states have said they will meet commitments under the statute if needed

FIUGGI: Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention must implement the court’s decision. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.

 

 


Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Updated 25 November 2024
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Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.


2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

Updated 25 November 2024
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2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

  • The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night

Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.