Foreign Affairs

US Military Set To Begin Humanitarian Airdrop Campaign In Gaza

Tensions are rising again on the Gaza Strip. By No machine-readable author provided. Zero0000 assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=239367

The U.S. military is set to begin airdropping humanitarian supplies into Gaza in the coming days, President Joe Biden announced Friday, according to reports.

Biden said the current flow of aid into Gaza is insufficient to remediate the worsening crisis as Palestinians struggle to access food, water and medical supplies while Israel fights against the Hamas terrorist organization embedded in Gaza, according to Axios. However, administration officials acknowledge that Pentagon-orchestrated humanitarian airdrops likely will not do much to change the situation, the WSJ reported.

“We are going to join with our friends from Jordan and others to provide airdrops of supplies into Ukraine,” Biden said in the Oval Office before clarifying that he meant to say Gaza, according to pool reports.

Each airdrop would amount to between just one and four truckloads of supplies as up to 250 trucks are already rolling into Gaza each day, according to the WSJ. Other officials told the outlet that even a small amount of assistance is better than nothing.

“The United States will do more,” White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said at a briefing Friday. The U.S. “will carry out airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza … in the coming days,” he said.

Jordanian King Abdullah II hoisted humanitarian aid out of a Jordanian military aircraft on a recent mission as Jordan has dumped tons of aid through airdrops since Israel’s war in Gaza, the WSJ reported.

The United Nations warned that a quarter of Gaza’s population, roughly 576,000 people, are coming close to experiencing famine, the WSJ reported.

“If nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable and the conflict will have many more victims,” Ramesh Rajasingham, the deputy chief of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the U.N. Security Council, according to the outlet.

The White House only recently began deliberating humanitarian airdrops, Axios reported.

“The situation is really bad. We are unable to get enough aid [in] by truck so we need desperate measures like airdrops,” one unnamed U.S. official told the outlet.

On Thursday, Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinian civilians around a convoy of aid trucks entering Gaza in a chaotic scene that U.S. officials later said underscored the people’s growing desperation, according to the WSJ.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.