“Israel MUST open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities.”
“The United States, which has helped fund the Israeli military for years, cannot sit back and allow hundreds of thousands of innocent children to starve to death,” Sanders (Vt.) said in a statement. “As a result of Israeli bombing and restrictions on humanitarian aid, the people of Gaza are facing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.”
Israeli forces have killed more than 30,200 Palestinians in Gaza—most of them women and children—while wounding over 71,300 others and displacing around 90% of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million people. Children are now starving to death, and experts say adults, especially elders and other vulnerable people, will soon follow absent urgent intervention.
Given that Israel justifies the recent massacre in this way, this seems to be part of the plan to commit genocide, while preserving some sort of deniability.
That’s why these are air drops. Short of Hamas (ineffectively) firing rockets at US aircraft, airdrops eliminate the risk of incidents like the flour riots.
In Gaza live more than 2 million people, of which almost everyone is facing starvation right now, while having no access to clean water and the medical infrastructure is practically nonexistent. To provide everyone with the bare minimum, you’d need to drop in about 20 kg per person and day. That would be a kilo of rice/flour/potatoes, another kilo of protein and vitamin sources, 15 litres of drinking water and the rest being hygienic supplies, medical supplies, blankets, tents, clothes…
That makes up 40.000 tonnes of daily deliveries. That is equal to about 4.000 normal trucks that need to enter Gaza every single day, or about 3 trucks every single minute.
That is the scale we are talking about. If the US used all their 450 CH-47 helicopters for this mission, with each one being able to load about a 10 tonne load, they’d be flying nonstop. And there is no way to station these off of one aircraft carrier. It would be a huge logistics mission, requiring the use of a proper land supplied air field nearby. And if you think, the US has better transport options, the C-130 line can only load 6 pallets at a time, so effectively not more, while requiring even better airfields.
Sanders is absolutely right. Air-Drops are nothing but a thin veil to pretend doing something about the issue. But the only way to provide sustained relief is through an extensive ground transport mission.
If you want just a rough idea of what we are actually talking about in terms of logistics here, have a look at the Berlin airlift That was about the same number of people, although they had access to clean drinking water.
And the US is required to do all of that ourselves? This isn’t a “tax dollars” thing, it’s just that it seems a little insane to here zero criticism of countries sending in zero supplies while the US is the great Satan for bringing in what it can while negotiating to bring in more by other methods.
Yes, ground is best, but that has serious risks. Those convoys would need to be protected by soldiers. Should they be IDF? We know why that’s not a great idea. Should they be US? What happens if they clash with Hamas? Is the US going to be pulled into the conflict? It sounds like bringing is supplies by sea is coming soon, and I know it’s not soon enough.
I totally get how bad things are, and it makes me sick. However, I also know that it’s totally possible to make things worse. This still has the ability to spread outside Gaza to a regional conflict.
Just in case it needs to be said, fuck Israel and Netanyaho. Also, in any conversation, “Bernie is right” is almost being redundant as far as I’m concerned. We absolutely need to do more, but the realities of the situation have to be navigated carefully.
The US is the single strongest supporter and protector of Israel. The US is sending billions of weapons to Israel and has continued to do so. The US continues to veto resolutions against the genocide in the UN security council.
The responsibility is by no means exclusive to the US, but given the share of responsibility of the US for enabling this genocide, their share in resolving it, must be equally high. There used to be an effective means of providing aid to Gaza. The UNRWA. But the US and other Israel supporters like Germany decided to sabotage it, the day after the ICJ ruled that Gaza needs more humanitarian aid to prevent a genocide. The sabotage remains on unproven accusations of Israel against a laughably small number of UNRWA employees.
Aid convoys don’t need to be protected by soldiers, if enough aid enters Gaza. The people are not “animals” or “plundering” or “rioting” or whatever terminology is used by pro Israeli propaganda. They are starving people desperate for food. Provide enough food and there is no fighting about it.