In full controversy for the famine that shakes the population of the Gaza Strip, Israel has decided Open your hand and guarantee “humanitarian pauses” and safe routes to facilitate food distribution in the area. The first thing we have seen however is something different: airplanes throwing food From the air, a measure that revives A controversy that already sounded strongly Just a year ago: Does the air cast really work? Is it real aid or is counterproductive?
Something is clear: Mathematics They indicate that it is not the most effective way.
What happened? That after days of controversy, marked by the publication of photographs in which they see familic Palestinian children and the hardening of the position of Germany, the United Kingdom and France, which They claim The end of the war (and the humanitarian crisis) in Gaza, Israel has decided to move card. On Sunday his army advertisement A series of “humanitarian pauses” in several points of the strip for ten hours a day to “increase the help” in the region.
“Safe” breaks and routes. On paper, the objective is to facilitate the arrival of resources to help the population of the Strip, which faces a serious malnutrition crisis denounced among other organizations by the UN. The Israel Defense Forces (FDI) argue that “humanitarian pauses”, added to the creation of “safe routes”, will allow “Improve the humanitarian response”.
The decision comes, however, in a very specific context: in the midst of an intense inertnational controversy due to the famine suffering from thousands of families from Gaza and the voices that accuse the Israel of being responsible for the crisis. The Netanyahu executive denies it and holds that humanitarian corridors “refute the false statement” of an “intentional famine”. In the opposite pole, Hamas alleges that Israel does not seek to stop the crisis in the strip, but “bleach her image”.
A fact: 470,000 people. The UN World Food Program (WFP) Calculate that 100% of the population of Gaza faces “acute levels of food insecurity” and specifies that there are 470,000 people to the “catastrophic hunger”. “71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers will require urgent treatment due to acute malnutrition,” prevent From the organism.
The WPF is not the only one who has warned of the very serious crisis that crosses the strip. The Ministry of Health of Gaza, under Hamas control, Calculate That since the beginning of the Israeli offensive, in 2023, 133 people have died for malnutrition. Only so far in July the deceased They exceed 60.
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What is the situation? The WFP warns That hunger in the strip “has increased dramatically” since in March the entry of aid in the region was prevented, “reversing the progress” achieved during the brief high the fire of the beginning of the year. In May, he remembers, the “limited” cast resumed, but has not served to stop the crisis. The UN says that since then it has only been able to deliver “small quantities” even though it has 116,000 t of food “lists”.
Does Just two months The food distribution was activated by the Humanitarian Foundation of Gaza (GHF), an organization backed by Israel and the US that was launched between the suspicion of other international institutions. The person in charge of the United Nations Help Coordination, Tom Fletcher, He came to cross out of “cynical parody”, “a cover -up for greater violence and displacement” of the Palestinians within the territory.
Looking at heaven. In the midst of the growing international controversy for the famine of Gaza, Israel has not only announced “tactical pauses” and “humanitarian runners” to facilitate the distribution of help in Gaza. He has also announced that he will connect a desalination plant to his electricity grid and has resumed the help of help from the air, a scene that already We saw in 2024.
On Sunday at dawn Israel carried out an operation wishes, with the help of airplanes. Jordan and United Arab Emirates They were added throughout the following hours. According to Reutersin total they dropped 25 tons of help.
A controversial decision. However, the use of aircraft and aerial launches will hardly help placate the controversy. Rather on the contrary. In 2024 about twenty humanitarian organizations They criticized That kind of deliveries in Gaza (both the aerial and maritime) by considering that “they are not an” real alternative to the most effective way and that, in their opinion, it should be a priority: the land.
“Governments cannot hide behind aerial releases and efforts to open a maritime corridor in order to create the illusion that they are doing enough to support Gaza’s needs,” they warned in A statement NGOs, including Amnesty International or Oxfam.
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Why do they reject them? The problem is not only of image or that air distributs are used as a way of avoiding the real focus of the problem. NGOs question their real utility warn that the capacity of airplanes is very limited. “Air releases cannot provide assistance volumes that can be transported by land,” They influenced last year.
“While a five truck convoy has the capacity to transport about one hundred tons of vital assistance, recent air releases only deliver a few tons of help each,” They argue. The BBC He has made accounts And it has come to the conclusion that, given the situation in Gaza, 160 aircraft would be needed to supply a volume of food that guarantees that the gazaties will have a meal a day. The US Central Command estimates that in 2024 its C-130 load aircraft delivered 12,650 meals by plane and trip.
“Extremely dangerous”. There is another reason why NGOs mislead air deliveries: safety. “The releases can be extremely dangerous for the lives of civilians who come in search of help. They have been reported dead by the free fall of help packages in gaza,” They warn The NGOs.
The BBC He has interviewed To experts who talk about crushing, help boxes that fall on tent and hurt their tenants and fights and quarrels between a famous population and desperate for taking home a little food. “People fight for help. There are injuries,” says Shaina Low, of the Norwegian Council for Refugees, who warns that even when the releases go well and the boxes fall into safe places the cast becomes a “chaos.”
A complementary solution? “Assistance is not improvised. Professional teams must be provided, with experience in the organization of distributions and the provision of services to save lives. Help deliveries must have a human face. Not only to evaluate the needs of affected people, but to return the hope and dignity of a traumatized population,” Underline AI. “While any help that comes to Gaza is welcome, air transport or by sea should be considered complementary to the land and not as a substitute.”
Images | DFID – UK Department for International Development (Flickr) and US Department of Defense Current Photos (Flickr)
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