Extract from ABC News
Bombs and bread. The United States is giving the former to Israel and the latter to Palestinians. Both are being dropped on Gaza.
The US decision to start parachuting aid into the besieged Palestinian territory has many figures in the humanitarian and diplomatic sector deeply frustrated.
They ask what could be a more absurd example of the world's failure to help Gazans than the sight of the US Air Force dropping food by parachute while hundreds of aid trucks are queued just outside the border?
The volume of food — 38,000 meals — was equivalent to about "half a truck" of supplies, the former USAID mission director to the West Bank and Gaza, Dave Harden, told ABC RN Breakfast. Hardly enough to make a meaningful impact.
The US also isn't dropping food into hostile territory, as it (and the Royal Australian Air Force) did to Yazidi refugees hiding from the Islamic State in Iraq in 2014. It's flying food over an area controlled by its closest ally, Israel.
"This is frankly embarrassing for the Biden administration," Mr Harden continued.
'No excuses'
The US has been saying for weeks that more aid needs to get into Gaza.
Just after it dropped the food, Vice President Kamala Harris made it clear that the White House is now holding Israel responsible for that failure.
"The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid," she said. "No excuses."
Israel, which inspects all shipments, denies blocking the entry of aid into Gaza.
"There is excess capacity at the Kerem Shalom Crossing to get aid into Gaza, and there is aid piling up on the Gazan side waiting for the UN to pick it up," Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said on March 2.
But the number of trucks entering Gaza has been falling, according to the UN, from an average of 170 per day in January, to 98 in February.
UN officials have cited onerous and capricious Israeli inspections, Israeli strikes on aid convoys and the killing of Gazan policemen (who were escorting aid deliveries) by Israel as some of the obstacles to effective aid delivery.
Rubble-strewn roads, ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas and the withdrawal of humanitarian groups from large parts of Gaza are some of the others.
The US government also said one of its aims in starting the air drops was to circumvent criminal gangs which have begun stealing aid shipments before they can be delivered.
Starvation as bargaining chip
The main solutions — more aid through more crossings and distribution secured and facilitated by the Israeli military — can only be implemented by Israel.
The IDF said it had been trying to do just that, contracting private businesses to deliver aid last week, when the "mass casualty incident" at the aid convoy — in which Gazan health authorities said more than 100 Palestinians were killed — occurred.
The Israeli military says its initial review of the incident showed most deaths were caused by a crowd crush and that "no strike was carried out by the IDF towards the aid convoy". Witnesses said the Israeli soldiers shot into the crowd and doctors treating the casualties said many had bullet wounds.
But using starvation as a bargaining chip — particularly at this crucial stage of ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel — is openly discussed in Israel.
"The civilian situation in the northern Gaza is a significant card in the negotiations with Hamas for the return of the hostages, and Israel is not willing to give it away for free," military affairs commentator Yossi Yehoshua wrote in Israel's biggest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, on March 3.
"Although, it's a drop in the ocean, Jerusalem and the Kirya [Israeli military headquarters] prefer to see pictures of food airdrops on the screens of news in the US rather than pictures of starving children ... Humanitarian aid is not a consolation prize or to look good, but rather a strategic need with the aim of achieving the war goals."
In the early weeks of the war, the former head of Israel's national security council, Major-General Giora Eiland, proposed that Israel create terrible conditions inside Gaza as a negotiating tool to secure the release of hostages.
"If we ever want to see the hostages alive, the only way is to create a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza," he told the Israeli news site Globes on October 8, the day after the Hamas terrorist attacks which triggered the Israeli offensive.
"When international institutions shout about a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and bodies are piling up in the hospital and they cannot treat them, we will reply, 'We have no problem solving the real problems of Gaza, but give us back our prisoners first'."
Israel did initially close all crossings and cut off water and electricity in the early weeks of the war.
Hamas has so far not responded to the urgent need in Gaza by making a quick deal with Israel for a ceasefire. It certainly bears some of the responsibility for the looming famine but is spending whatever is left of its operational capacity fighting.
As children die, the situation is critical
With conflict ongoing, the population displaced and infrastructure destroyed, Hamas lacks any way beyond the ceasefire to improve conditions.
There are also key figures in the Israeli government who want the war to continue until the Hamas leadership has been killed and all of Gaza secured.
Their reluctance was evident in Israeli's late-stage refusal to send negotiators to Egypt on March 3 to finalise the ceasefire, on the pretext of not receiving an updated list of living hostages from Hamas.
Not even key members of Israel's security cabinet expected Hamas would provide such a document and were frustrated by the decision not to attend the talks, but the refusal allowed those hawkish elements within the Israeli government to delay the negotiations.
The situation could not be more critical.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said 15 children have died from starvation in one hospital alone and the UN said 576,000 people in Gaza are facing "catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation".
None of the main humanitarian actors think air drops will solve the crisis, as even the US government acknowledges.
But if half a truck of food falls from the sky, at least it is better than a bomb.
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