Mounting deaths and destruction paint a horrific landscape
Access to humanitarian aid has been an ongoing issue throughout Israel's war on Gaza. While world leaders have called for unrestricted aid delivery, Israel has reduced aid as much as possible to further pressure the Gazan population. Occasionally, the international community has been given authorization to airdrop aid into Gaza. Dangerous and undignified, parachutes fill the sky as hoards of starving people rush to guess where they may land. Some have fallen on top of people, leading to deaths and severe injuries. Others have destroyed tents and refugee encampments.
Want to know more about the realities of air-dropping aid into Gaza? Click on the gallery to find out more.
Aircraft fly over a particular disaster zone, after gaining permission from the specific country that manages the air zone. Airdrops can occur from anywhere between 100-7,000 meters (approximately 328-22,965 feet) in the air.
Hefty pallets are pushed out of planes by military or humanitarian workers, or they’re released with or without parachutes. Even with the best of intentions, all they can do is hope the pallets land where they’re supposed to.
Packages can weigh anywhere from 20-50kgs (44-110lbs), typically consisting of dried goods that can withstand the pressure, such as rice, dried lentils, chickpeas, etc.
Ideally, even in contexts where airdrops occur, there would be a group of designated workers or a group affiliated with major humanitarian organizations that would then gather the pallets, bring them to a central location, organize them, and prepare the items for distribution.
In February 2024, the World Food Programme (WFP) issued a statement: Over 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza were at risk of famine. They warned that the humanitarian situation was dire, and that imminent action needed to be taken to avoid further devastation.
On February 29th, 2024, an aid convoy entered the northern Gaza Strip—an operation approved by the Israeli government. Crowds began to gather, eager for the distribution of much-needed aid. Suddenly, there was gunfire.
The Israeli military began shooting indiscriminately toward the crowd. Chaos ensued. The bodies of the killed were covered in flour, grasping for aid in a state of desperation. A total of 118 Palestinians were killed and 760 injured in the incident, which was dubbed the "flour massacre."
In the absence of reaching a ceasefire agreement and the continuous targeting and blocking of humanitarian envoys by the Israeli government, the international community began a series of humanitarian airdrops into Gaza.
Jordan and France had already conducted such operations. In March 2024, three American military planes parachuted aid boxes containing 38,000 meals.
Palestinians looked to the sky, to guess where their much-needed meal would land. Another tragedy hits. Failed parachutes caused the packages to hit the ground suddenly, killing five. Children are especially vulnerable.
Many others have died from parcels with failed parachutes that freefall from the sky and land on people’s tents. In October 2024, a three-year-old boy named Sami Ayyad was killed when an airdropped parcel fell on him in Khan Younis, Gaza.
Sami’s grandfather tried to seek help, but there are no functioning hospitals left in Gaza. The incident was too severe, and the boy died instantly.
A CNN report on the incident notes an important statement from Sami’s grandfather: “We are human beings, not animals to drop food from the sky.”
This dangerous and undignified delivery of aid has been highlighted by several humanitarian organizations. Airdropping aid on people who have alternative means of receiving it is considered inhumane by international organizations.
Particularly in Gaza, a population already isolated, traumatized, and living in desperate conditions, with little prospects for a dignified future, human rights organizations argue that the population should not be further isolated.
By November 2024, famine in Gaza threatens the lives of well over one million people. In northern Gaza in particular, which has been faced with a mass evacuation order, starvation is an imminent danger, in addition to the constant airstrikes and mass arrests.
No aid has entered northern Gaza since early October 2024, when threats of famine were already widespread. There were seven mass causalities in the first week of November alone. At least 100,000 civilians are unable to evacuate.
Transportation of aid by air should be complementary to aid coming by land, and only deployed on an extreme-need basis. It should be distributed by professionals who can assess needs and offer adequate services to the population.
According to Amnesty International, airdrops simply cannot provide the volume of assistance that is needed. Land transportation is by far the most effective in terms of the capacity required to provide the kind of assistance that is desperately needed.
Pictured: Famished children collect flour on the ground that spilled from a passing aid truck.
Very few professional humanitarian workers have been allowed to enter Gaza. International organizations argue that the dire circumstances that Gazans are facing require urgent, unrestricted access to both aid and personnel.
This dangerous form of aid delivery is further complicated by recent measures taken by the Israeli government, which has outlawed UNRWA, the international organization responsible for the needs of the Palestinian people.
UNRWA is the primary agency that Palestinians rely on for humanitarian aid and social structures, such as schools. However, the Israeli government now considers this UN agency a terrorist organization, and Palestinians are left facing even more dire circumstances.
Under international law, Israel is obligated to guarantee the protection of the civilian population, including ensuring access to humanitarian aid. Instead, the civilian population is being subjected to intensifying attacks, arbitrary mass detainment, and a complete collapse of the healthcare system.
Civilian infrastructure has faced mass destruction. Hospitals and shelters have been subjected to airstrikes and shelling. Healthcare workers have been detained, and the few medical supplies that existed have been destroyed.
Pictured is the only bakery left in the city of Khan Younis.
The prolonged scarcity of food has driven the population to desperate measures. Gazans have been consuming grass and animal feed, whenever this can be accessed, just to survive.
Pictured are children in Khan Younis collecting spoiled food from a makeshift landfill.
Children in particular have faced soaring rates of extreme malnutrition, which will certainly mark generations to come. In response, Israel has issued a draft nutrition paper, which argues that sufficient food has entered Gaza.
This paper, which has not been peer-reviewed and relies on data collected exclusively by the Israeli government, has nonetheless been used as evidence to counter claims made by human rights organizations in courts.
These dangerous claims not only counter the reality documented on the ground, but also attempt to justify the continuous blocking of aid and the distribution of goods in a situation that has been labeled “apocalyptic” by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee.
Sources: (reliefweb) (CNN) (AP News) (Al Jazeera) (World Food Programme) (Amnesty International) (Refugees International) (IASC)
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Access to humanitarian aid has been an ongoing issue throughout Israel's war on Gaza. While world leaders have called for unrestricted aid delivery, Israel has reduced aid as much as possible to further pressure the Gazan population. Occasionally, the international community has been given authorization to airdrop aid into Gaza. Dangerous and undignified, parachutes fill the sky as hoards of starving people rush to guess where they may land. Some have fallen on top of people, leading to deaths and severe injuries. Others have destroyed tents and refugee encampments.
Want to know more about the realities of air-dropping aid into Gaza? Click on the gallery to find out more.