UNRWA chief says aid airdrops a dangerous ‘distraction’, could kill starving Palestinians.
The United Kingdom says it is working with Jordan on “forward plans” to airdrop aid into besieged Gaza and evacuate children needing medical care as Israel’s forced starvation and bombardment of Palestinians fuel global outrage.
Two infants on Saturday became the latest Palestinian children to die from malnutrition. Hospitals in Gaza have now recorded five new deaths due to famine and malnutrition in the past 24 hours. The total number of starvation deaths in the territory has risen to 127, including 85 children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed the proposal on Saturday in an emergency call with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
In a readout of the call, the UK government said the leaders had
agreed “it would be vital to ensure robust plans are in place to turn an urgently needed ceasefire into lasting peace,” according to Britain’s Press Association.
“The prime minister set out how the UK will also be taking forward plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance,” the readout said.
Starmer’s Labour government has been roundly accused at home of doing too little too late to alleviate the intense suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK have been protesting weekly against Israel’s genocidal war since October 2023, making it clear they feel their voices aren’t being heard.
Public anger has been further stoked as police in the UK arrested more than 100 people at peaceful protests across the country last weekend that called for a ban on the campaign group Palestine Action to be reversed.
Demonstrations took place last Saturday in Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Truro and London as part of a campaign coordinated by Defend Our Juries.
Starmer is also facing mounting pressure to recognise a Palestinian state as France has said it will do at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September. More than 200 British parliamentarians urged the prime minister to take this course of action this week.
There has been further controversy over accusations the UK government has continued with arms sales to Israel despite stating it had scaled back weapons sales.
A report in May found that UK firms have continued to export military items to Israel despite a government suspension in September amid allegations that the UK Parliament has been deliberately “misled”.
The report by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Progressive International and Workers for a Free Palestine revealed that the UK sent “8,630 separate munitions since the suspensions took effect, all in the category ‘Bombs, Grenades, Torpedoes, Mines, Missiles And Similar Munitions Of War And Parts Thereof-Other’.
‘Waiting for the green light to get into Gaza’
In the meantime, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), said proposed airdrops of aid would be an expensive, inefficient “distraction” that could kill starving Palestinians.
Israel said on Friday that it will allow airdrops of food and supplies from foreign countries into Gaza in the coming days in response to critical food shortages caused by its punishing months-long blockade.
But in a social media post, Lazzarini said the airdrops would “not reverse the deepening starvation” and called instead for Israel to “lift the siege, open the gates [and] guarantee safe movements [and] dignified access to people in need.”
Airdrops, he said, are “expensive, inefficient [and] can even kill starving civilians”. “A manmade hunger can only be addressed by political will,” he said, calling on Israel to allow the UN and its partners to operate at scale in Gaza “without bureaucratic or political hurdles”.
He said UNRWA has the equivalent of 6,000 trucks in Jordan and Egypt “waiting for the green light to get into Gaza”. “Driving aid through is much easier, more effective, faster, cheaper and safer” than airdrops, he said, adding that it is also more dignified for the people of Gaza.
More than 100 aid and human rights groups this week called on governments to take urgent action as a hunger crisis engulfs Gaza, including by demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the lifting of all restrictions on humanitarian aid.
In a statement signed and released on Wednesday by 109 organisations, including Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Doctors Without Borders (also known as MSF), the groups warned that deepening starvation of the population was spreading across the besieged enclave.
