Israel has begun to airdrop food into Gaza, Israel said on Saturday, as deaths from starvation in the besieged enclave spread this week and international criticism of Israel’s restrictions on aid reached a crescendo.
The Israeli military said seven pallets of flour, sugar and canned goods — which appeared to be less than a truckload of food — was dropped Saturday night after a meeting led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior aides. Israeli troops will pause fighting on Sunday to allow for food distribution and assist U.N. agencies in their aid delivery effort, the military said, and Israel will also turn on electricity to Gaza’s only functioning water desalination plant.
Israel shut the plant in March, depriving Gaza of the ability to make its own potable water.
Aid agencies on Saturday described the airdrops as an inadequate response and an Israeli attempt to whitewash a policy of deliberate starvation. The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday that the airdrops and other measures were “aimed at improving the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, and to refute the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip.”…
Dire conditions on the ground:
- A 5-month-old Palestinian baby suffering from malnutrition died in her mother’s arms on Friday, becoming one of the enclave’s latest hunger victims. Doctors are out of room inside hospitalsas they try to treat starving patients.
- Six people were killed and more than 160 injured while waiting for aid in northern Gaza in two separate incidents on Friday night and Saturday morning, according to medics. The IDF said troops fired “warning shots” near aid trucks, but that it was not aware of the reported casualties. The US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been criticized for not making aid sites safer since being positioned to replace the services of a UN agency.
Israel’s aid announcements:
- Pauses in fighting: A “humanitarian pause” for parts of Gaza will begin Sunday local time, the IDF told CNN, without specifying the intended length of the pause. The IDF said the pauses will take effect in designated “densely populated areas,” even as fighting would continue elsewhere.
- Aid corridors: Israel will also open “humanitarian corridors” in Gaza on Sunday, the Israeli ambassador to the US said. The IDF said in an earlier statement that it was prepared to establish the corridors for UN convoys.
- Airdrops begin: Meanwhile, Israel began dropping humanitarian aid into Gaza on Saturday. The UK and other governments are also rushing to get aid onto planes to Gaza, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said, after Israel said Friday that it would allow foreign nations to conduct airdrops too.
- Why the aid drops are controversial: The practice of dropping aid into the enclave has been dismissed by humanitarian groups as expensive, inefficient and dangerous for those on the ground. The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees called the drops a “distraction” Saturday, saying it will do little to alleviate suffering in the enclave while Israel maintains its blockade.
Protests:
- The family members of Israelis still held captive by Hamas renewed their protests in Tel Aviv Saturday evening, slamming the Israeli government for failing to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and return their loved ones. Anti-war protests also took place elsewhere across the country, after the US and Israel recalled ceasefire negotiators this week….
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Israel starts airdrops with humanitarian aid in Gaza, a military spokesperson has told Reuters. The Israeli forces said humanitarian corridors would also be established for UN convoys, though it did not say when or where. The military also said it was prepared to implement “humanitarian pauses” in densely populated areas.
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Despite its decision to resume aid drops, Israeli forces said its combat operations across Gaza “have not ceased”. In a statement on Saturday, the IDF said: “We will continue to operate in Gaza to return all hostages and to defeat Hamas, both above and below ground.”
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Prior to Israel’s decision to resume aid drops, the United Arab Emirates issued a statement on Saturday, saying it will restart aid drops across Gaza. In a post on X, UAE’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, said: “The humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached a critical and unprecedented level. The United Arab Emirates remains at the forefront of efforts to deliver life-saving assistance to the Palestinian people.”
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The Lebanese health ministry said three people were killed in Israeli strikes on the south on Saturday despite a ceasefire, as the Israeli military said one of them targeted a Hezbollah militant. “The Israeli enemy drone strike that targeted a vehicle” in Tyre district “killed one person”, a ministry statement said.
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A Syrian diplomatic source said Saturday that a US-mediated meeting with Israeli officials in Paris this week sought to “contain the escalation” after recent sectarian violence in southern Syria prompted Israeli intervention. Israel launched strikes this month on Damascus and the Druze-majority Sweida province, saying it was acting both in support of the religious minority and to enforce its demands for a demilitarised southern Syria….
Hamas Aid Story…
For nearly two years, Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid provided by the United Nations and other international organizations. The government has used that claim as its main rationale for restricting food from entering Gaza.
But the Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations, the biggest supplier of emergency assistance to Gaza for most of the war, according to two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved in the matter.
In fact, the Israeli military officials said, the U.N. aid delivery system, which Israel derided and undermined, was largely effective in providing food to Gaza’s desperate and hungry population.
Now, with hunger at crisis levels in the territory, Israel is coming under increased international pressure over its conduct of the war in Gaza and the humanitarian suffering it has brought. Doctors in the territory say that an increasing number of their patients are suffering from — and dying of — starvation…..