Saturday, March 02, 2024

Like when fighting the Nazis in WWII, the US has to resort to air drops to feed the starving victims

D. Parvaz (NPR) reports:

The U.S. military on Saturday said it began dropping food over the Gaza Strip, a war-torn enclave desperate for humanitarian aid.

A "a combined humanitarian assistance airdrop into Gaza" of over 38,000 meals along the coastline using C-130 aircraft was conducted by U.S. and Jordanian air forces, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

"We are conducting planning for potential follow-on airborne aid delivery missions," CENTCOM said.

President Biden on Friday said the U.S. would carry out airdrops in coming days, "redouble our efforts to open a maritime corridor, and expand deliveries by land."

Now remember,  when Brazil's president Lula da Silva points out similarities between the Nazis and Netanyahu, some people go into apoplexy.  So please, nobody bring up Operation Chowdown.

Huh?

You don't know that one.  Well, so we're all on the same page:

Operation Manna and Operation Chowhound were humanitarian food drops to relieve a famine in the German-occupied Netherlands undertaken by Allied bomber crews during the final days of World War II in Europe. Manna (29 April – 7 May 1945), which dropped 7,000 tonnes of food into the still Nazi-occupied western part of the Netherlands, was carried out by British RAF units and squadrons from the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and Polish air forces. Chowhound (1–8 May 1945), which dropped 4,000 tonnes, was undertaken by the United States Army Air Forces. In total, over 11,000 tonnes[1] of food were dropped over one and a half weeks with the acquiescence of the occupying German forces[2] to help feed Dutch civilians in danger of starvation.

After it was realised that Manna and Chowhound would be insufficient, a ground-based relief operation named Operation Faust was launched. On 2 May, 200 Allied trucks began delivering food to the city of Rhenen, behind German lines. 


Here's video.




The first video was the food drop today.  The second video was Operation Mana and Chowdown.  Today, the UN Security Council issued a statement:

Members issued a statement on Saturday expressing their deep concern over reports that "more than 100 individuals lost their lives, with several hundred others sustaining injuries, including gunshot wounds...in an incident involving Israeli forces at a large gathering surrounding a humanitarian assistance convoy southwest of Gaza City."

They noted that an Israeli investigation is underway.

The Council stressed the need to take all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, adding that all parties to conflicts must comply with their obligations under international law.

Parties were urged to refrain from depriving civilians in Gaza of basic services and humanitarian assistance.

The Council expressed grave concern that the entire population, more than two million people, could face alarming levels of acute food insecurity.

Members reiterated their demand for parties “to allow, facilitate, and enable the immediate, rapid, safe, sustained and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip”.

They urged Israel to keep border crossings open for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, to facilitate the opening of additional crossings to meet humanitarian needs at scale, and to support the rapid and safe delivery of relief items to people across the enclave. 


Meanwhile, protests took place around the world.  CNN notes, "Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted US first lady Jill Biden at least four times during a campaign speech on Saturday in Arizona. It's just the most recent example of the tense political climate at play in the Democratic Party. In January, President Biden was interrupted more than a dozen times by people protesting the war in Gaza."  THE TRIBUNE REVIEW reports:


Demonstrators took to the streets in downtown Pittsburgh on Saturday, March 2, 2024 to demand a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, and that Israel stop military operations in Rafah, the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Rafah, which is located near the border with Egypt, is where the majority of displaced Palestinians have fled.

The march for peace in Gaza drew a crowd of hundreds.

It was organized locally by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice For Peace and also drew other independent activists.

Saturday’s protest was one of many staged simultaneously around the world, according to an event coalition that includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, the International Peoples’ Assembly and numerous other organizations.


Protests took place in England.  THE SOCIALIST WORKER notes:

Palestine groups across Britain responded to Rishi Sunak’s attacks on the movement by taking to the streets on Saturday.

Around 1,000 Palestine supporters marched in Birmingham to rage against Israel’s genocide and Tory Islamophobia.

Ali, the chair of Friends of Palestine in Birmingham, is disgusted by Tory Islamophobic attacks. “For me, it is ‘extremist’ that Sunak didn’t call out people like Lee Anderson, Suella Braverman, and many other right wing racist Islamophobes in his party,” he said. 

“Instead, he’s calling us—peace-loving humanitarians, calling for an end to the bloodshed—the extremists. This is the era, the times that we live in. Unfortunately, the Tory party is in the gutter with the sewage”.


Gaza remains under assault. Day 148 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  NBC NEWS notes that the death toll is now "past 30,300 amid surging fears of starvation in the north of the territory. More than 70,300 have been injured, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead."  Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:







And the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."   


In today's violence, Aurora Alemndral (NBC NEWS) reports, "Eleven people were killed and about 50 others injured, the Gaza Health Ministry said today, following a strike on tents housing displaced people in the southern city of Rafah. The tents were next to the gate of the Emirati Maternity Hospital, and the dead included a paramedic and a nurse, as well as children, the ministry added."   CNN's Richard Roth and Mohammed Tawfeeq report:

 UN Women, a United Nations organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, called the war in Gaza "also a war on women."

In a statement Friday, the organization estimated 9,000 women have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 attack.

"As the war on Gaza approaches its five-month mark, Gazan women continue to suffer its devastating impact," the statement read. "While this war spares no one, UN Women data shows that it kills and injures women in unprecedented ways."

UN Women reported an average of 63 women are killed every day in Gaza, with an approximate 37 mothers who are killed daily, "leaving their families devastated and their children with diminished protection."

"More than 4 out of 5 women (84 per cent) report that their family eats half or less of the food they used to before the war began, with mothers and adult women being those tasked with sourcing food, yet eating last, less, and least than everyone else," the statement added.



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