US begins aid airdrop over Gaza as three Air Force C-130s deliver supplies in embattled region; Cease-fire deal on the table
The United States started airdropping humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip Saturday as officials said the framework for a new cease-fire was reached.
Three US Air Force C-130s dropped supplies over the embattled region around 9 a.m. ET, US officials said.
The US Air Force Central Command said a total of 66 bundles were dropped, or 22 from each aircraft.
The packages contained over 38,000 ready-to-eat meals, but did not include water or medical supplies.
The US Central Command did the “combined humanitarian assistance drop” in collaboration with the Royal Jordanian Air Force, CENTCOM said on X.
“The DoD humanitarian airdrops contributes to ongoing U.S. government efforts to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza,” the post read. “We are conducting planning for potential follow-on airborne aid delivery missions.”
“These airdrops are part of a sustained effort to get more aid into Gaza, including by expanding the flow of aid through land corridors and routes,” it added.
More airdrops are expected to follow, but it was not immediately clear when another shipment would be delivered.
In other developments:
–U.S. officials told reporters that Israel accepted the terms of a deal for a six-week cease-fire, and negotiators are awaiting Hamas’ response.
The guns could stop immediately if Hamas agrees, an unnamed US official told reporters in a Saturday press call. “There’s a deal on the table,” the official said, adding that talks were ongoing in Doha. “We have been working to get this in place by Ramadan … [but] the ball is literally in the court of Hamas.”
Peace talks are expected to resume on Sunday.
Both sides have agreed to the duration of a cease-fire truce, hostage and prisoner exchanges, but the deal is still waiting on an agreement on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from northern Gaza, an Egyptian security official claimed.
–A march led by families of the hostages held by Hamasentered Jerusalem on Saturday evening – capping off the three-day journey that started Wednesday at Kibbutz Re’im, the Times of Israel reported.
The march will culminate with protestors joining the regular Saturday night protest, and demonstrators will demand the government arrive at a hostage deal, the outlet explained.
–Vice President Kamala Harris will meet Monday at the White House with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz, a White House official said.
It is not clear when the airdrops will resume. President Biden announced plans for the drops on Friday, saying that “aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough.”
Palestinian authorities, however, slammed the aid drop as a “weak” move by the US.
“America behaves as a weak marginal country unable to secure the entry of aid to the hungry in the Gaza Strip,” the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement shared on X.
The US actions, the group insisted, “are not befitting of a great power that is capable if it wants, to force Israel to protect the Palestinian civilians and provide for their humanitarian needs.”
Humanitarian groups also criticized the effort, with RIchard Gowan, the UN director of the International Crisis Group calling it a “temporary Band-Aid.”
“Humanitarian workers always complain that airdrops are good photo opportunities but a lousy way to deliver aid,” he remarked.
“While Palestinians in Gaza have been pushed to the absolute brink, dropping a paltry, symbolic amount of aid into Gaza with no plan for its safe distribution would not help and be deeply degrading to Palestinians,” Oxfam’s Scott Paul wrote on X.
The drop also comes after more than 100 Palestinian civilians were killed and more than 700 injured during a melee online for food outside Gaza City earlier this week.
While the Israel Defense Forces blamed the majority of the casualties on a stampede, the Hamas-linked Gazan health authority and UN insiders accused the IDF of opening fire on the desperate crowd and driving the aid trucks away.
“From what they saw, in terms of the patients alive and getting treatment is that there is a large number of gunshot wounds,” UN Secretary General’s spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric explained at a news conference Friday, according to CNN.
With Post wires
