CrossFireArabia
The airdrop of aid into the Gaza Strip is yet another act of humiliation and degradation against Palestinians. It endangers civilians crowded into less than 15 per cent of the enclave and serves a graver purpose: enabling Israel’s policy of mass starvation, deliberately used as a tool of genocide in its systematic effort to eliminate Palestinians in Gaza.
The resumption of aid airdrops, following months of widespread starvation, neither meets the minimum humanitarian needs nor alleviates the catastrophe caused by Israel’s deliberate policy of starvation. Instead, it perpetuates the illusion of relief while starvation continues to be used as a weapon against civilians.
This step, approved by Israel and implemented on Saturday evening, does not reflect a genuine shift in the humanitarian response. Rather, it aims to mislead international public opinion and downplay the severity of the crime, diverting attention from Israel’s systematic starvation policy in the Gaza Strip, which has caused an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. This catastrophe is marked by widespread famine, denial of food, water and medicine, destruction of supply chains, obstruction of land-based aid delivery, and continued attacks on those seeking food. These actions reveal Israel’s persistent use of starvation as a primary tool to decimate the population and undermine their means of survival.
The catastrophic conditions on the ground underscore the severity of Israel’s starvation policy, especially after 55 people were officially declared dead from starvation and malnutrition in just one week. It is also estimated that around 1,200 elderly people have died in the past two months due to a lack of food and medical care, amid the total collapse of the healthcare system and the continuing blockade.
The airdrops do not constitute a genuine humanitarian response but rather mark a new chapter in the ongoing humiliation of civilians in the Gaza Strip, following the public degradation and repeated killings at distribution centres operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation under Israel’s direction.
Instead of opening safe and organised land corridors, residents are forced to crowd into dangerous areas under bombardment to retrieve parcels dropped randomly from the air, in conditions that compromise their dignity and endanger their lives, as has occurred repeatedly. Such practices strip relief of its humanitarian purpose and reproduce a colonial dynamic based on subjugation and control, reducing the right to survival to a humiliating favour instead of a fundamental human right.
With 2.3 million Palestinians displaced into less than 15 per cent of the Gaza Strip due to Israeli control and forced evacuation orders, airdropped aid poses a serious risk to civilian lives amid severe overcrowding and the absence of safe areas.
Euro-Med Monitor recalls that when airdrops were first introduced several months ago, even while the accessible area was relatively larger, they led to the deaths of 18 Palestinians and injuries to dozens more.
Last night’s airdrops injured at least 11 civilians, further highlighting the failure of this mechanism to ensure safe and orderly access to aid. It also reinforces serious concerns that civilians are being placed in harm’s way rather than protected, especially amid severe overcrowding and the shrinking of safe areas due to Israeli-imposed policies of forced annexation and displacement.
The reality on the ground demonstrates that airdropped aid is scarce, randomly distributed, and poses serious risks. It frequently lands in densely populated areas, on displaced people’s tents, in evacuated zones, in areas under Israeli control, or in the sea, making it an unsafe and ineffective method from a humanitarian perspective.
The extreme starvation civilians are enduring has, for weeks, driven them to seek aid along delivery routes and at distribution centres, despite knowing these places are humiliating and have become death traps. Their desperate search for aid has turned into a daily scene of collective humiliation, exposing them to immediate danger and fuelling tension and conflict among the population over access to scarce food supplies.
Addressing the famine in Gaza cannot be achieved through superficial or gaudy measures but requires an immediate end to the blockade and the opening of safe, stable land corridors to enable the regular and sufficient delivery of food, medicine, and fuel. This must be done through official UN mechanisms that previously managed aid distribution through approximately 400 centres, before Israel deliberately dismantled them. Only the restoration of this system can ensure that aid reaches all those in need fairly, safely, and transparently, without discrimination or subjugation.
Operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation must be halted. Established by Israeli authorities, the foundation functions as a mechanism of collective humiliation and military control over aid, operating outside any recognised legal or humanitarian framework. Rather than ensuring fair and safe access to aid, it enables Israel to manipulate distribution in line with its own objectives. Under this system, distribution centres have become sites of mass killing, managed directly under Israeli supervision.
The continued operation of this foundation obstructs any genuine humanitarian response and reinforces Israel’s full control over relief channels. This is evident in the airdrops conducted under Israeli supervision, driven by a colonial logic rooted in genocide, deliberately stripping the besieged population of both humanitarian aid and human dignity.
States must urgently push for the restoration of humanitarian access and the lifting of the illegal blockade, as this is the only way to stop the accelerating humanitarian deterioration and ensure the entry of aid, given the imminent threat of famine.
The establishment of safe humanitarian corridors under UN supervision is vital to ensure the delivery of food, medicine, and fuel to all areas of the Strip, with independent international monitors deployed to verify compliance.
All states, individually and collectively, must urgently fulfil their legal obligations to halt the genocide in the Gaza Strip in all its forms. This includes taking concrete measures to protect Palestinian civilians in the enclave, ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the International Court of Justice rulings, and guarantee full accountability for crimes committed against Palestinians. Euro-Med Monitor also calls for the enforcement of the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued for the Israeli Prime Minister and former Defence Minister, and for their swift surrender to international justice without regard to immunity.
The international community is urged to impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel and its more powerful allies, particularly the United States, for their grave and systematic breaches of international law; these sanctions should include comprehensive arms embargoes and the suspension of all forms of political, financial, military, and intelligence cooperation. In addition, Euro-Med Monitor calls for freezing the assets of responsible Israeli, US, and any complicit EU officials, banning their travel, halting their military and security companies’ access to international markets, and suspending trade privileges and bilateral agreements that facilitate Israel’s ongoing Western-backed crimes against the Palestinian people.
