UNRWA chief warns Gaza aid airdrops will not stop 'starvation' - War on Gaza
"Airdrops will not reverse the deepening starvation. They are expensive, inefficient & can even kill starving civilians," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, stressing that the wave of starvation affecting Gaza was "manmade".
An Israeli official told AFP on Friday that aid drops in Gaza would resume soon, adding they would be conducted by the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
The humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory -- under a four-month Israeli blockade -- has gravely deteriorated in recent days, with international NGOs warning of famine, particularly among children.
An infant, Hud Arafat, died Saturday morning due to severe malnutrition and the lack of baby formula, according to the Palestinian WAFA news agency.
"Lift the siege, open the gates & guarantee safe movements + dignified access to people in need," Lazzarini said, referring to the various entry points under Israeli control that regulate access into Gaza.
Israel imposed a total blockade on the entry of aid into Gaza on 2 March. Two months later, the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operating there, where Israeli forces have routinely opened fire on starving Palestinians near aid distribution points.
Israeli forces have killed over 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the so-called humanitarian foundation started operations, according to the UN.
The UN and NGOs on the ground have decried the severe scarcity facing Gaza's 2.4 million people, with shortages of food, clean water, medicine and fuel.
More than 100 aid organisations have already warned that "mass starvation" was spreading across the Palestinian territory.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Friday that a quarter of all young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women screened at its clinics in Gaza last week were malnourished, blaming Israel's "deliberate use of starvation as a weapon".
Almost a third of people in Gaza are "not eating for days" and malnutrition is surging, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said Friday.
The head of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday said that 21 children had died across the Palestinian territory in the previous 72 hours "due to malnutrition and starvation".
The current blockade – Israel's most severe – is not the first imposed on Gaza. Multiple blockades have been enforced during various phases of the war on the territory, which began in October 2023.
In 2024, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, France and other countries carried out airdrops in Gaza to ease Palestinians' suffering under one such blockade.
However, many in the humanitarian community view such drops as ineffective and dangerous, citing the small volumes of aid delivered and the risk of people being injured or killed by falling crates -- as has happened previously in Gaza.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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