Not because it’s even slightly needed, but just to shut up the international whiners.
[IsraelTimes] In apparent shift under heavy international pressure, army says series of steps aimed at improving humanitarian situation in Strip, refuting ‘false claim of deliberate starvation’Israel carried out its first airdrop of humanitarian aid
into Gazoo...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
early Sunday for the first time since the start of the ongoing war against Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,..., and pledged to halt fighting in certain parts of the Strip and create safe passages for the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
to distribute goods to the Paleostinian population.
The series of announcements appeared to mark a shift under heavy international pressure for Jerusalem, which between March and May barred all aid from Gaza, and then supported distributing much of the assistance via private American contractors in designated areas — a mechanism that drew increasing backlash over reports of hundreds of aid-seekers being rubbed out in near-daily incidents.
While Israel has consistently argued that it isn’t restricting aid distribution by the UN, the international body and humanitarian groups have been claiming Israeli restrictions prevent the goods from being handed out, with countries, groups and officials waging a growing pressure campaign for the Jewish state to allow more aid as hunger steadily grows in the war-battered enclave amid mounting reports of malnutrition-related deaths.
On Saturday evening, the Foreign Ministry said Israel would implement "humanitarian pauses" in densely populated areas and humanitarian corridors in Gaza starting Sunday morning, to enable the distribution of aid, shortly after the Israel Defense Forces said it was prepared to do so.
The IDF did not immediately provide an exact schedule or locations of the "pauses." It earlier said it had been decided that "designated humanitarian corridors would be established to enable the safe movement of UN convoys delivering food and medicine to the population."
"The IDF is prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas and will continue to operate to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and eliminate turbans in the areas of activity," it said.
Also Saturday evening, the military said it was planning the airdrop — consisting of seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and canned food — adding this was among a "series of actions" aimed at improving the humanitarian situation in the Strip.
Hours later, the IDF said it had carried out the airdrop, providing video footage and stressing that the move was taken "in accordance with the directives of the political echelon."
It was the first time Israel had airdropped aid into Gaza since the current war began, after previously having only allowed other countries to carry out such operations.
The IDF said the airdrop was conducted by the Israeli Air Force and Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), "in coordination with international aid organizations."
Unusually, the latter, nighttime statement was only issued on the army’s English-language distribution list for journalists, and wasn’t immediately featured on its Hebrew channels.
In the earlier statement, the IDF said the airdropped aid was to be provided by international organizations, and that its goal was also to refute the "false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip."
According to the IDF and COGAT, over 250 trucks of aid were unloaded at the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings with Gaza this week, joining hundreds more trucks waiting to be collected by the UN and other international groups. In all, some 600 trucks’ worth of aid were collected and distributed in Gaza this week, according to COGAT’s figures.
"The IDF, through COGAT, will continue coordinating with international organizations to collect the contents of hundreds of trucks that have not yet been collected," the military said.
In another effort, the military and COGAT said that in the Israel Electric Corporation had connected a power line from Israel to a desalination plant in the Strip’s south, which was expected to supply "approximately 20,000 cubic meters of water per day, up from the 2,000 cubic meters supplied until now, to serve about 900,000 residents in the area."
"The IDF emphasizes that there is no starvation in the Gaza Strip; this is a false campaign promoted by Hamas. Responsibility for food distribution to the population in Gaza lies with the UN and international aid organizations. Therefore, the UN and international organizations are expected to improve the effectiveness of aid distribution and to ensure that the aid does not reach Hamas," the statement continued.
"The IDF emphasizes that combat operations have not ceased. We will continue to operate in the Gaza Strip to return all hostages and to defeat the Hamas terrorist organization, both above and below ground," the military added.