Malnutrition in Gaza at alarming levels, WHO warns as aid airdrops resume – follow live

Israel’s aid measures a gesture to allies horrified by Gaza starvationpublished at 16:26 British Summer Time

16:26 BST

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor

While Israel continues to insist it is not responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and does not impose restrictions on aid entering Gaza, those claims are not accepted by its close allies in Europe, or the United Nations and other agencies active in Gaza.

The new measures might be a tacit admission by the Israelis that they need to do more.

More likely they are a gesture to allies who have issued strong statements blaming Israel for starvation in Gaza.

Israel released grainy footage of a transport plane dropping pallets of aid into Gaza. The IDF said it had delivered seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and tinned food.

Professionals involved in relief operations regard dropping aid from the sky as a last resort. They use it when any other access is impossible. That’s not the case in Gaza. A short drive north is Ashdod, Israel’s modern container port. A few more hours away is the Jordanian border, which has been used regularly as a supply line for aid for Gaza.

Gaza was one of the world’s most densely populated places before the war when the population of more than two million Palestinians had access to the entire strip. In British terms, the Gaza Strip is slightly smaller than the Isle of Wight. Compared to American cities, it’s roughly the size of Philadelphia or Detroit.

Now Israel has forced most of Gaza’s people into a tiny area on the southern coast, amounting to around 17% of Gaza’s land. Most of them live in densely packed tents. It is not clear if there is even an open space for despatchers high in the sky to aim at.

Pallets of aid dropped by parachute often land far from the people who need it.

Each pallet will be fought over by desperate men trying to get food for their families, and by criminal elements who will want to sell it for profit.