The global community has dishonored so many of the fundamental principles of international law and aid delivery that censuring the “no harm” belief seems hardly worth a mention in this context, as 23 Palestinians have thus far died from starvation and dehydration.
There are a small number of large, clear drop zones in Gaza. The parachutes can land on dangerous, unsafe, semi-destroyed buildings. Winds, not least in the upper atmosphere, can carry them off course, which is why some pallets have landed in the Mediterranean.
To receive and secure the aid packages, there are no forces, let alone ensure that they get to the neediest. The fittest and strongest are most likely to get there first, not the ones dying of starvation. It becomes a dangerous scrum, as those surviving on grass and animal feed fight for every morsel.
The airdrops have mainly been a show. They are the most costly, most hazardous, and least efficient means of getting aid into Gaza. Nobody in the humanitarian sector was enthused by the airdrops. For most Palestinians, they are just a rather hollow attempt at virtue signaling.
Strangely, the current American leadership has developed a bizarrely last-minute aversion to seeing Palestinian babies and others dying of starvation. It does not look good, but then again nor did the carpet-bombing of much of Gaza. This sense of right and wrong barely pricked when schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and homes crumpled under the 900-kg bunker-busting bombs the US had supplied.
In his State of the Union speech, President Joe Biden made the unusual step of slamming Israel. “To the leadership of Israel, I say this: Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.” Why such a statement did not appear when Israel imposed a total siege in October, Palestinians ask.
US President Joe Biden conspicuously on Monday announced plans to build temporarily a jetty on the coast of Gaza to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Russia has termed the US initiative to build a jetty off the coast of the Gaza Strip to provide humanitarian aid as a cruel joke.
A day before yesterday, in response to a question by the media at a press conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova questioned how sincere the initiative to build infrastructure in the war-torn region could be.
These are cruel jokes, things to make fun of people. Because when civilians are dying every day of hunger, when we need to talk about their fate when we need to talk about how to implement peace, when something like that is talked about, then you understand what the consequences will be in the end, he said.
When a country as the US now does not even want to hear a cease-fire plan, does not want a ceasefire, how we can consider the initiative to build civilian infrastructure, he asked.
Israel has been attacking Gaza since October 7 killing bout thirty-two thousand Palestinians. Most of them are women and children. Besides, at least seventy-three thousand people were injured.
It has imposed a strict blockade on Gaza. As a result, people in Gaza, especially in northern Gaza, are in famine-like conditions. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 27 people have died in Gaza from malnutrition and diarrhea because of the Israeli blockade.
It internally displaced 85 percent of Gazans and deprived them of food, clean water, and medicine. In addition, 60 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure saw destruction by Israeli attacks.
The US continues to veto cease-fire proposals persistently in Gaza. What is more, it supplies Israel with weapons of mass destruction and ammunition.
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