The President announced the move after at least 115 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 injured, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, when witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as huge crowds raced to pull goods off an aid convoy.
Biden said the airdrops would begin soon and that the US was looking into more ways to facilitate getting badly needed aid into the war-battered territory to ease the suffering of Palestinians.
“In the coming days we’re going to join with our friends in Jordan and others who are providing airdrops of additional food and supplies” and will “seek to open up other avenues, including possibly a marine corridor”, Biden said.
The President twice referred to airdrops to help Ukraine, but White House officials clarified he was referring to Gaza.
Israelis in a protest outside the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, demanding the release of hostages from Hamas captivity. Photo / AP
Israel said many of the dead were trampled in a stampede linked to the chaos and that its troops fired at some in the crowd who they believed moved towards them in a threatening way. The Israeli government has said it is investigating the matter.
Biden made the announcement while hosting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White house.
“Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough,” he said. “Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line. We won’t stand by until we get more aid in there. We should be getting hundreds of trucks in, not just several.”
The White House, State Department and Pentagon had been weighing the merits of US military airdrops of assistance for several months, but had held off due to concerns the method is inefficient, has no way of ensuring the aid gets to civilians in need, and cannot make up for overland aid deliveries.
Palestinians line up for food in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Photo / AP
Administration officials said their preference was to further increase overland aid deliveries through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border points, and to try to get Israel to open the Erez Crossing into northern Gaza.
The incident appeared to tip the balance and push Biden to approve airdrops. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said airdrops were difficult operations, but the acute need for aid in Gaza informed the President’s decision.
He stressed ground routes would continue to be used to get aid into Gaza, and the airdrops were a supplemental effort.
“It’s not the kind of thing you want to do in a heartbeat. You want to think it through carefully,” Kirby said. “There’s few military operations that are more complicated than humanitarian assistance airdrops”
Biden in his visit with Meloni at the White House on Friday also sought to assure European leaders the US remains behind Ukraine even as he’s been unable to win passage of a supplemental foreign aid package that includes US$60 billion ($98b) for Ukraine in addition to US$35b for Israel and Taiwan. The legislation has passed the Senate, but Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to put it up for a vote in the House.
Before Meloni’s visit, White House officials had said they didn’t have good answers for allies about finding an end to the impasse with House Republicans and reopening the American spigot of aid to Kyiv that’s badly needed as Ukraine tries to fend off Russia’s invasion.
Biden, along with top Democrats and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, strongly urged Johnson during a White House meeting this week to take up the foreign aid package, but Johnson responded by saying that Congress “must take care of America’s needs first”.
The leaders’ agenda also discussed the US, Egypt and Qatar to broker an extended ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Italy’s priorities for a G7 presidency, migrant flows into Italy from North Africa, and their countries’ China policies.
Palestinians walk through the destruction from the Israeli offensive in Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Photo / AP
Biden said this week he was optimistic a ceasefire deal could be reached by early next week. But he acknowledged a prospective deal might have been set back after Israeli troops on Thursday fired on a large crowd of Palestinians racing to pull food off the aid convoy.
