Palestinian authorities say Gaza needs 600 aid trucks daily to meet needs of territory’s 2.4 million people
Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates carried out airdrops of humanitarian aid over the Gaza Strip on Wednesday amid a famine and Israeli genocide against civilians in the territory.
According to Jordan’s official news agency Petra, the Jordanian army conducted “a new round of airdrop operations to deliver relief aid to our brothers in the Gaza Strip, in cooperation with the UAE Air Force.”
The airdrops, the agency said, were conducted “using two C-130 aircraft belonging to the Royal Jordanian Air Force and its Emirati counterpart, in coordination with the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization.”
It added that “16 tons of food and baby formula were dropped over various areas of the Gaza Strip, bringing the total aid delivered via airdrop over the past few days to approximately 73 tons of essential supplies, according to a mechanism that ensures high-efficiency delivery.”
Egyptian Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Gharib Abdel Hafez announced in a statement on Facebook that four military transport aircraft took off from Egypt “loaded with tons of food aid to conduct airdrop operations over areas in the Gaza Strip that are difficult to access by land.”
He added that the step aims to “alleviate the harsh living conditions and acute humanitarian shortages faced by the residents of the Strip, while land-based aid delivery continues in parallel.”
This comes as the Israeli army announced Saturday that it would allow limited quantities of aid to be airdropped over Gaza and that it had begun a “local tactical pause in military activity” in specific areas of the Gaza Strip to permit humanitarian access.
The Israeli step coincides with growing regional and international pressure over the worsening famine in Gaza and warnings of a potential mass death crisis threatening over 100,000 children in the enclave.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) criticized the airdrops, asserting that they will not end the deepening famine.
Tel Aviv promotes its limited authorization of humanitarian airdrops over the famine-stricken Palestinian enclave while hundreds of aid trucks remain stuck at land crossings that Israel has kept closed since March 2 -- a blockade that has fueled the spread of famine throughout the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian authorities say Gaza needs 600 aid trucks daily to meet the needs of the territory’s 2.4 million people.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 154 people have died of starvation since October 2023, including 89 children.
The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
