US pledges aid drops for Gaza residents
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Friday the U.S. would airdrop humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip to help alleviate hunger and starving caused by the Israel-Hamas war.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Biden said “innocent people” have died in Gaza. He said the aid drops would start “in the coming days.”
This humanitarian aid will be delivered by a U.S. military aircraft, according to a U.S official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
“Innocent people got caught in a terrible war unable to feed their families, and you saw the response when they tried to get aid,” Biden said. “But we need to do more, and the United States will do more.”
Biden said the U.S. would join Jordan and other countries to provide airdrops of supplies into Gaza and would seek to open up other avenues into the region, including the possibility of a marine corridor delivering large amounts of humanitarian assistance.
“Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now — it’s nowhere nearly enough,” Biden said. “Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line.”
Humanitarian officials have warned that hunger and disease are spreading fast in Gaza, particularly in the northern part of the strip, as the result of five months of attacks.
Top U.N. officials said earlier this week that at least one-quarter of Gaza’s population — 576,000 people — is one step away from famine and that virtually the entire population desperately needs food. Some aid trucks have been shot at, looted and overwhelmed by hungry people.
One in 6 children under the age of 2 in northern Gaza is suffering from “acute malnutrition and wasting,” where the body becomes emaciated, officials said.
A deal that would trigger a six-week cease-fire is on the table, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said later Friday. A cease-fire would allow aid to flow more freely, he said.
Biden, along with top Democrats and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, strongly urged Johnson during a White House meeting this week to take up the foreign aid package, but Johnson responded by saying that Congress “must take care of America’s needs first.”
Biden said earlier this week that he was optimistic that a cease-fire deal could be reached by early next week. But he acknowledged that a prospective deal may have been set back after
Israeli troops on Thursday fired on a large crowd of Palestinians racing to pull food off the aid convoy.
The head of a Gaza City hospital that treated some of those wounded in the bloodshed surrounding an aid convoy said Friday that more than 80% had been struck by gunfire, suggesting there had been heavy shooting by Israeli troops.
At least 112 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 others were injured Thursday, according to health officials, when witnesses said nearby Israeli troops opened fire as huge crowds raced to pull goods off an aid convoy. Israel said many of the dead were trampled in a stampede linked to the chaos and that its troops fired at some in the crowd who they believed moved toward them in a threatening way.
Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, told The Associated Press that 176 wounded were brought to the facility, of whom 142 had suffered gunshot wounds. The other 34 showed injuries from a stampede.
He couldn’t address the cause of death of those killed, because the bodies were taken to government-run hospitals to be counted. Officials at the other hospitals couldn’t immediately be reached concerning the dead and other wounded.
The bloodshed underscored how chaos amid Israel’s almost 5-month-old offensive has crippled the effort to bring aid to Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, a quarter of whom the U.N. says face starvation.
Thursday’s convoy wasn’t organized by the U.N. Instead, it appeared to have been monitored by the Israeli military, which said its troops were on hand to secure it to ensure it reached northern Gaza. The ensuing shooting and bloodshed raise questions over whether Israel will be able to keep order if it goes through with its postwar plans for Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put forward a plan for Israel to retain open-ended security and political control over the territory – an effective reoccupation — after Hamas is destroyed. Under the plan, Palestinians picked by Israel would administer the territory, but it’s uncertain if any would cooperate.
That would leave Israeli troops, who throughout the war have responded with heavy firepower when they perceive a possible threat, to oversee the population amid what the international community says must be a massive postwar humanitarian and reconstruction operation.
Israel launched its air, sea and ground offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 others. Since the assault began, Israel has barred entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies, except for a trickle of aid entering the south from Egypt at the Rafah crossing and Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing.
The Israeli military said that dozens of the deaths were caused by a stampede and that some people were run over by trucks as drivers tried to get away.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesperson, said that Israeli troops guarding the area fired shots “only towards a threat after the crowd moved toward them in a way that endangered them.” He said the troops “didn’t open fire on those seeking aid.”
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan accused Israel of targeting civilians in the tragedy. In separate statements, they called for increased safe passages for humanitarian aid. They also urged the international community to take decisive action to pressure Israel to abide by international law and to reach an agreement for an immediate ceasefire.