According to an article in the New York Times March 1, President Biden has said the United States will work with allies to deliver aid to Gaza by air and by sea. The statement appears to have been a response to violence on Thursday near an aid convoy in Gaza City resulting in many people killed and wounded..
The article quotes Biden in the White House on Friday:
“Innocent people got caught in a terrible war unable to feed their families, and you saw the response when they tried to get aid in,” Mr. Biden said. “And we need to do more, and the United States will do more.”
“Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now,” Mr. Biden said. “Innocent lives are on the line, and children’s lives are on the line.”
The article says the first airdrops will focus on food, followed by water and medicine. The Air Force plans to drop 50,000 meal rations.
The Biden administration has been considering airdrops for some time, but so far has chosen not to in part because of the logistical challenges of dropping aid into a dense war zone.
John F. Kirby, a senior National Security Council official, said that the chaos on Thursday had underscored the need to “find more creative ways of getting assistance in faster and at a greater scale.”
The article continues: “The deaths around the convoy may prove to be something of an inflection point, prodding the White House to put greater pressure on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid in.”
Mr. Kirby said that the deaths show the need for Hamas and Israel to agree to a cease-fire and release the hostages held in Gaza. A pause in Israel’s military operations would allow more humanitarian aid to move into the territory more quickly, he said.
The U.S. airdrops should begin in the coming days.
Mr. Kirby said that planning for the airdrops was far more developed, and that the operation could speed aid more quickly than by bringing in supplies via the Gaza coastline. The operation would likely involve military aircraft.
In addition, as there are limits to what can be brought in by military cargo planes, the U.S. has asked Israel to open more border crossings in eastern Gaza. The U.S. is also looking into creating a temporary port so aid can be brought in by sea.
Creating a temporary port could bring in more aid, but setting up such a facility in a secure way presents a challenge. The United States would not use American troops to build the temporary facility, or use American amphibious landing craft.
“It will be a supplement to, not a replacement for, moving things in by ground,” Mr.Kirby said. “This isn’t about replacing trucks.”
The article points out that airdrops are “an imperfect and expensive way to deliver food and medicine.”
Even big military cargo planes can carry only a fraction of the supplies that a truck convoy can carry. In addition, aid dropped on the ground is difficult to secure and distribute in an orderly way.
The U.S. is hoping that U.N. relief agency workers can distribute the aid to civilians.
Airdrops have already proved helpful in Gaza and other places:
Egypt, Jordan, France and the United Arab Emirates have already participated in aid airdrops to Gaza. The United States regularly dropped supplies by air in Afghanistan and used airdrops for humanitarian relief operations elsewhere in the past.
In a Washington Post article about the Jordanian air force dropping 33 tons of medical supplies, food and other necessities on Gaza on Feb. 29, an American official says the U.S. is also considering deploying a hospital ship or aid ship “among other options as we work to try to increase humanitarian aid flows into Gaza.”
UPDATE:
The Reuters news agency is reporting that the US military has carried out its first airdrop of humanitarian aid into Gaza, according to two officials speaking on condition of anonymity. They said the airdrop was carried out using three C-130 planes and more than 35,000 meals were airdropped.
However, international aid groups are criticizing the U.S. plan to airdrop food to Gaza, saying that “such a move would be ineffective and would distract from more meaningful measures like pushing Israel to lift its partial siege of Gaza.”
“Airdrops do not and cannot substitute for humanitarian access,” the International Rescue Committee, a New York-based aid organization, said in a statement on Saturday. “Airdrops are not the solution to relieve this suffering, and distract time and effort from proven solutions to help at scale.”