US planes drop more aid in Gaza and deliver 36,800 meals

The United States carried out a second round of humanitarian aid airdrops in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, as the Biden administration continued efforts to prevent a wider humanitarian disaster in the Palestinian territory.

U.S. Air Force cargo planes dropped 36,800 ready-to-eat meals in a joint operation with the Jordanian Air Force “to provide essential assistance to civilians affected by the ongoing conflict,” the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on Tuesday. It said army troops trained in airstrikes were part of the airdrop, and that it was planning more such missions.

Some aid experts and humanitarian groups have criticized the US airborne landings as insufficient and largely symbolic, given the scale of the hunger problem facing Gaza after five months of war. Cargo planes can carry only a fraction of the food that a convoy of trucks can deliver, experts say, and a better solution would be for the United States to convince Israel to open more border crossings and speed up inspections.

Tuesday’s operation followed a first round of airborne landings on Saturday, two days after more than a hundred Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces opened fire around a convoy of aid trucks in northern Gaza.

Doctors at hospitals in Gaza said most of the casualties were the result of gunfire. The Israeli military said most of the victims were trampled as they tried to seize the cargo, although Israeli officials acknowledged that troops had shot at people they said had threatened them.

After the convoy killings, President Biden said the United States would find new ways to get aid to Palestinians in desperate need because of Israel’s five-month military campaign to destroy Hamas. Only a trickle of aid has reached northern Gaza by land, but aid groups have criticized airdrops as ineffective. The amount of aid delivered by a French plane in an airborne landing last week was far less than a single truckload.

Although Mr Biden has begged Israel, which has largely sealed off its border with Gaza, to clear the way for more aid deliveries, demand for food, water and medicine there remains huge. These circumstances have put political pressure on Mr. Biden to do more to help the Palestinians, even as the U.S. supplies Israel with military equipment.

Despite his frustrations with Israel’s political leadership, Biden has not threatened to impose limits on US military aid to the country.