Biden can do better than dropping food into Gaza from a plane

The president’s announcement Joe Biden The fact that the United States will use planes to deliver food to the people of the Gaza Strip on Friday is an encouraging sign that the White House is showing greater concern about the plight of Palestinians there, after the deaths of more than 30,000 people and many more. face hunger.

But often the launch of humanitarian aid is the solution last resort in emergency situations, and if Biden really wants to save the lives of Palestinian civilians, there are better ways to provide aid.

The problem with airdrops (and I have seen them in remote areas of South Sudan where there was no other way to deliver aid) is that they are inefficient and require careful coordination with humanitarian workers on the ground collecting supplies and distributing them.

But there aren’t many ground operations by aid workers in Gaza, partly because of Israel prevented them.

Israel has strictly limited the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, leaving trucks with supplies lined up outside.

And he attacked the civil police officers who were supposed to monitor the convoys, because they were affiliated with them Hamaswhich caused a security breach which prevented deliveries.

Likewise, Israeli authorities have been unwilling to cooperate with the UN agency that has experience in providing aid to Gaza – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – following the allegations that a dozen of the 12,000 personnel in Gaza participated in Hamas terrorist attacks. on October 7.

This is the scenario of Thursday’s disaster in which, according to reports, more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza They died while trying to get food from a convoy; Israel appears to have attempted to organize a convoy with private contractors, bypassing the aid agency and conventional aid groups.

The solution to the problem of hungry people attacking food convoys is quite simple:

allow trucks to cross the border and be delivered by UNRWA and other humanitarian groups, with civilian police escort.

Dropping food from planes is better than nothing, but it increases the likelihood that armed Hamas fighters will receive it, rather than more vulnerable people, such as children, the elderly and the disabled.

And some parachutes don’t open, so pallets can kill or injure people; and in any case, the problem of distribution of food from the unloading area to other parts of Gaza remains.

The simplest path forward would be for Biden to insist that Israel open more border crossings, allow many more trucks through, allow civilian police escorts, and accept that UNRWA and humanitarian groups play a central role in food distribution.

It would be less visual than an airdrop, but it would save many more lives.

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