Gaza Gov’t Slams Theatrical, Ineffective US Airdrop Aid

By Staff, Agencies

The Palestinian government in Gaza has dismissed a decision by the United States to airdrop humanitarian aid into the besieged territory, saying the theatrical and ineffective move can’t offset “Israeli” restrictions on the transfer of food into Gaza via land crossings.

“The policy of airdropping humanitarian aid and preventing the delivery of aid through border crossings is in fact part of an evasive strategy that does not address the core issue and resorts to theatrical and ineffective solutions instead,” the Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday.

The statement said the aid airdrop by the US is in line with the occupying “Israeli” entity’s policy of intentionally starving the Palestinians, adding that it is also meant to kill time and to prolong the hunger crisis in Gaza to inflict as much damage as possible upon the population in the strip.

It added that aid airdrops also entail serious risks for Palestinians in Gaza as some of them could land near the fence along the border with the “Israeli”-occupied territories, prompting “Israeli” military forces to fire indiscriminately on unarmed civilians seeking to pick up the aid items.

The statement reiterated that airdrops of aid into densely populated areas like the Gaza Strip, which is home to some 2.4 people, are fairly difficult because the aid can be damaged because of potential adverse weather conditions or unexpected incidents.

“Some of the food bundles were dropped into the sea and did not reach needy people. This is while humanitarian aid brought into Gaza via trucks would reach a great proportion of the population, and is not subject to damage,” it added.

In parallel, the government in Gaza held the US administration and the “Israeli” entity accountable for the ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza while calling on freedom-loving nations of the world to stop the Tel Aviv regime from continuing its ethnic cleansing in the enclave.

The US Central Command said in a statement on Saturday that together with Jordan’s air force it had “conducted a combined humanitarian assistance airdrop into Gaza … to provide essential relief to civilians affected by the ongoing conflict”.

The C-130 planes “dropped over 38,000 meals along the coastline of Gaza allowing for civilian access to the critical aid”, it further claimed.