US Air Force cargo planes dropped food over Gaza on Saturday. The C130s had 66 pallets carrying a total of 38,000 meals. The beams were dropped over the area by parachute.
The US government said the flights should be the first in a series of missions to combat famine in the enclave. It works closely with Jordan, which also organizes food drops. An American spokesman spoke of it as a “safe way” to provide assistance to people on the ground. Other countries, including the Netherlands, have previously dropped aid supplies on the Gaza Strip.
So far, emergency goods have entered the Gaza Strip only at a slow pace, through the only border crossing with Egypt, at Rafah, and the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. Because Israel wants to prevent weapons smuggling into the region, it is carrying out stricter inspections of convoys.
At least 115 Palestinians were killed on Thursday when a crowd of people stormed a convoy of trucks. According to eyewitnesses, an unknown number of them were killed when the occupation soldiers opened fire on them because they felt threatened. Others died in the crowding around the trucks and the panic of the shooting.
The United Nations says that of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the Strip, a quarter of them suffer from acute malnutrition. Officials of the popular organization describe air drops as not an effective way to deliver aid to Palestinians suffering from hunger.
Peter van Amelrooy
The French government and the United Nations have called for an investigation into the bloodshed surrounding an aid convoy in Gaza on Thursday, writes correspondent Jane Jan Holtland
