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SvennoJ on 17 March 2024
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Another drop in the ocean

US military airdrops humanitarian aid over northern Gaza

The US military has confirmed its 13th airdrop of aid over northern Gaza, where the UN says a third of Palestinian infants are exposed to severe malnutrition. As land crossings remain hindered by the Israeli military, two C-17 Globemaster III large military transport aircraft dropped 28,000 meals and 34,500 small, 0.5-litre water bottles over the area.

The US army’s Central Command (CENTCOM) vowed to continue the airdrops, which are also undertaken by other US allies.



UNICEF chief: Gaza babies ‘don’t even have energy to cry’

One in three babies under the age of two in northern Gaza are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to the UNICEF. Catherine Russell, executive director at the UN’s child protection agency, described in an interview with US broadcaster NBC what that means.

“Essentially, the body starts to consume itself as it has nothing else, and it’s a painful, painful death for children. I have been in wards where babies are suffering from malnutrition, the whole ward is absolutely quiet because the babies don’t even have the energy to cry”, she said.

“If we can get therapeutic feeding to them they can survive, but often they are stunted for life, and stunted means your cognitive ability is impacted as well, so it is a life-long challenge for these children – if they survive.”


UNICEF chief says Gaza aid from sea, air a ‘drop in the bucket’

The executive director at UNICEF, Catherine Russell, also said in her interview that we reported on earlier that the one thing the organisation knows for sure is that “not enough aid is getting in”. She said the aid that is coming in through airdrops and a maritime route are “a drop in a bucket in both cases”.

“We have so little access right now and it’s very challenging. We are also facing very great bureaucratic challenges moving trucks in by land, which is by far the most efficient and effective way to get aid in.”

“If things are dual use, sometimes they get rejected. So, we can’t get plastic pipes in, we can’t get some medical kits in if they have little scissors. It’s almost Kafkaesque sometimes trying to figure out how to get things into this bureaucratic mess.”


Glimmer of hope

More aid trucks on their way to north Gaza

Al Jazeera cameras have captured a convoy of 15 aid trucks entering Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza. The trucks are carrying flour, rice and other foodstuffs, and are on their way to an UNRWA distribution centre, our correspondent reports.

Earlier, we reported that 13 aid trucks arrived safely in Jabalia and Gaza City, marking the first convoys to travel from the south to the north of the Gaza Strip without incident in four months.

North Gaza continues to face rampant starvation, as Israel continues to block significant aid from entering the region.