The US military made its first airdrop of aid into Gaza, where a quarter of the population faces starvation.
Joint efforts with the Royal Jordanian Air Force, using C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, saw the US drop 66 packages containing more than 38,000 meals along Gaza's Mediterranean coast.
A US military official said planning was also underway for “possible follow-on airborne aid delivery missions.”
The war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7 last year when the armed group killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage.
Since then, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says the Palestinian death toll has reached 30,320. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in numbers, but says that women and children constitute about two-thirds of the dead.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began, Israel has prevented food, water, medicine and other supplies from entering Gaza, except for a small amount of aid entering from the south.
Before that, Gaza relied on a constant flow of 500 supply trucks daily, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
This number averaged 150 per day in January and 97 per day in February.
Reports of people eating animal feed to survive and children dying from malnutrition and dehydration have heightened the urgency after nearly five months of war.
The United States has called on a number of occasions to allow more aid to enter by land, but critics say that resorting to expensive and ineffective airdrops shows Washington's declining influence over its ally.
Egypt, France, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are among the other countries that have been airdropping aid into Gaza since the conflict began.
In the past two weeks, the UK has worked with Jordan to drop aid, including medicines, fuel and food, to Tal al-Hawa Hospital in northern Gaza.
An American military plane takes off carrying humanitarian aid heading to Gaza. Photo: US Air Force
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that Israeli forces killed at least 115 people as they tried to reach an aid convoy near Gaza City.
Israel said it fired warning shots but the victims were trampled when crowds rushed to aid trucks.
The European Union Diplomatic Service said today that many of the dead were injured by Israeli army fire and called for an international investigation.
US President Joe Biden spoke about the deaths on Friday, he said He announced that the airdrops would continue“The loss of life is heartbreaking,” he said. “People are so desperate.”
Read more:
Analysis – The airdrop shows the scale of the disaster that Gaza is suffering from
Exclusive: The company that makes millions from Gaza's misery
Hamas tells Sky News that Biden’s hopes for a ceasefire are “wishful thinking”
In addition to cost and inefficiency, the risks of airdrops include danger to those on the ground and the possibility that aid could end up in the hands of militants.
John Kirby, White House national security spokesman, said planes can move aid more quickly than trucks, but in terms of volume, airdrops are only “a supplement — not a substitute — to moving things by ground.”
He added: “There are few military operations more complex than airdropping humanitarian aid.”
Meanwhile, efforts continue to reach a ceasefire before the start of Ramadan on March 10, with mediators expected to meet again in Cairo over the next few days, and Kamala Harris meeting with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz at the White House on Monday. She is also visiting the United Kingdom, Sky reported. Mark Stone reported.
The ceasefire will be the first since November, and hopes have risen after a previous round of talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt and positive indicators from US President Joe Biden.
Egyptian security sources told Reuters that Israel and Hamas had agreed on the duration of the truce and the release of hostages and prisoners, but a senior American official said that this depended on the movement’s agreement to release the hostages.
The Yemeni government also confirmed that the cargo ship Rubimare – registered in the United Kingdom but flying the flag of Belize – sank less than two weeks ago. It was hit by a Houthi missile.
The Houthis, an armed group that controls parts of Yemen, launch attacks on ships in the Red Sea region to show support for the Palestinians.
