The US drops food in Gaza for the first time

The United States made its first airdrop of humanitarian aid to Gaza on Saturday in coordination with Jordan, as the Biden administration tries to prevent a wider humanitarian disaster amid frustration with Israel.

American planes carried out the airborne landing jointly with the Jordanian air force, the US Central Command said in a statement on Saturday.

The airdrops contribute “to the U.S. government’s ongoing efforts to provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza,” the statement said. “We are in the process of planning for possible follow-on aerial relief missions.”

Three U.S. Air Force cargo planes dropped 66 pallets over southwestern Gaza, a U.S. official said. The pallets contained 38,000 ready-made meals.

The declines come a day after 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. It also comes two days after more than a hundred Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces opened fire around a convoy of aid trucks in northern Gaza.

US officials said the incident showed the desperation faced by Palestinians in Gaza and that the ground convoys Israel has allowed into the territory are not providing sufficient relief. But they warn that airdrops cannot carry supplies on the scale of convoys — even large military cargo planes, like the C-130s used Saturday, can carry only a fraction of the supplies a truck convoy can carry. In addition, it is difficult to secure aid that falls on the ground and distribute it in an orderly manner.

Their main goal, officials said, is to negotiate a lull in the fighting that would allow much more truck traffic.

It was not clear when the next airborne landing would take place as bad weather was forecast for Gaza on Sunday.