Biden announces US airdrops of humanitarian assistance into Gaza

CNN —

The United States will begin air dropping food aid to the people of Gaza, President Joe Biden announced Friday, as the humanitarian crisis deepens and Israel continues to resist opening additional land crossings to allow more assistance into the war-torn strip.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Biden said the US would be “pulling out every stop” to get additional aid into Gaza, which has been under heavy bombardment by Israel since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

“Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough,” the US president said, noting that “hundreds of trucks” should be entering the enclave.

Biden said the US is “going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need, no excuses.”

He also noted the efforts to broker a deal to free the hostages and secure an “immediate ceasefire” that would allow additional aid in.

The US military is working to carry out the airdrops in the coming days, a US official told CNN.

The announcement of the US airdrops is an acknowledgment of the dire situation in Gaza, where more than a hundred people were killed Thursday where Israeli troops opened fire as people waited for a food convoy in the north.

Aid trucks tried to escape the area, accidentally ramming others and causing further deaths and injuries, the eyewitnesses added to CNN.

The airdrops will provide some relief to those on the ground. However, their use is highly unlikely to bring about a sustainable solution for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as each drop can only bring in a fraction of the amount of aid that could be transported into the enclave by trucks.

Instead, their use underscores the devastating impact of the Israeli government’s