It's just under an hour. Sixty minutes that mark the difference between the luxury cafes of the Jordanian capital and the devastating sight from the sky when flying over Gaza. The Jordanian Air Force C-130 plane leaves the base shortly after 10:15 in the morning. Inside, it carries about 300 kilos of aid. According to the World Food Program, the nearly two million Palestinians living in the enclave need 2,000 tons daily to cover their basic needs. "Tea, rice, cans of chickpeas, and baby formula milk," explains Mahmud Abu Rais, the spokesman for the uniformed personnel accompanying the journalists.
After heading towards the sea through Jordanian territory and neighboring Egypt, the plane approaches the Strip. The uniformed personnel tighten their safety harnesses and ensure that all pallets are secured to the green parachutes installed over the cargo compartments. They do not try to hide the multiple limitations they have to accept from Israel. "Please, do not take photos of Gaza," they demand, without their request being heeded. "Israel does not want those images to be seen", adds another crew member.
The Jordanians want the cameras to focus on the boxes being launched from inside, once the rear hatch is opened. But from the windows, the catastrophe that has befallen Gaza can be seen. There are dozens and dozens of crushed houses. Not destroyed by bombings, but with the roof almost intact, on top of a pile of rubble: the clear sign of an explosion.
There are also fallen apartment towers; others, crumpled and lying on the ground, as if they were ruined cement accordions, next to collapsed buildings, these yes, by aerial bombs. And a myriad of displaced crowds: hundreds and hundreds of plastic tents, crowded in the middle of houses, on the edges of streets, in old squares, next to a small reservoir. From the air, Gaza seems to have faced that unrestrained rage that characterizes earthquakes, leaving some areas flattened, and others seemingly intact. In this case, the only nature responsible for this suffering is human.
The dropping operation lasted just over five minutes. One of the many carried out by air units from Germany, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, and Italy this Sunday. According to the official statement, it was 93 tons. Since Israel allowed the resumption of the airlift on July 27, this conglomerate of nations -whose crews wander through the hangars of the Zarqa air base- has managed to send 464,000 kilos of aid. Just over 20% of what would be needed daily. "Yes, many people criticize this system. But between nothing and this... we will be saving some lives," says one of the members of the Netherlands contingent.
The Jordanian C-130 is part of the criticized aerial operation allowed by Israel in an attempt to counter the accusations that it is solely responsible for the severe humanitarian crisis facing Gaza. The World Health Program has warned that one in three Gazans cannot eat for days and that 90,000 malnourished women and children require urgent assistance in a critical situation defined as "a man-made massive famine," indirectly referring to Israel. The same organization estimated that nearly half a million Gazans will face a "catastrophic" level of hunger - the highest on the scale of these events - between May and September of this year. The Gaza Health Ministry stated this Sunday that, until the previous day, 212 people had died due to lack of food, including 98 children.
The hunger calculations are not new in this conflict. Israel has been making these calculations for decades, even though using hunger as a weapon is a war crime. Tel Aviv announced that it was beginning to restrict access to supplies to Gaza from the moment Hamas cleanly won -as all international observers testified- the legislative elections of 2006. It was then that Dov Weisglass, one of the main advisors to then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, was frank in describing the future policy of the Jewish state. "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not let them die of hunger," he publicly declared. The government now led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his fundamentalist allies has decided that from the "regime," they should move directly to famine.
The UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, stated that it had about 6,000 trucks full of aid in Jordan and Egypt, ready to enter Gaza, something that Tel Aviv refuses. "Gaza needs quantity, not visibility," says Unni Krishnan, emergency response director at the NGO Plan International, involved in land shipments to the Palestinian territory. "Aerial drops only make sense in extreme cases, like earthquakes in remote mountainous regions where roads are destroyed. This is not the situation in Gaza. There are roads. Aid trucks are ready. What is lacking is access. The famine here is a crisis triggered by a blockade [by Israel]," he adds.
The expert also agrees with what many Palestinians have denounced: the "humiliation" of fighting for randomly falling aid packages in the Strip. "Humanitarian aid is not just about delivering goods, but delivering them with dignity and empathy," he points out.
The criticisms of the Plan International representative correspond to those of most NGOs working in Gaza. "It is a useless initiative that shows cynicism," said Jean Guy Vataux, emergency coordinator in Gaza for Doctors Without Borders, in July. For the Center for Humanitarian Action, based in Berlin, this is "the most senseless airlift in history." "A waste of money," added its director, Ralf Sudhoff.
A group of 25 NGOs released a statement in March of last year -during another wave of aerial assistance allowed by Israel- accusing the international community of "hiding" behind images of parachutes instead of assuming "their primary responsibility: preventing atrocious crimes and applying effective political pressure to end the incessant bombings and restrictions preventing the safe delivery of humanitarian aid."
A BBC investigation confirmed that the current pace of aerial deliveries is little more than anecdotal in reducing the shortages facing the population of Gaza, as it would require the daily action of 160 planes to provide a single meal to local families.
Experts emphasize that meeting the huge demands of Gazans would require a deployment as spectacular as the airlift that supplied Berlin during the siege it suffered between 1948 and 1949, which averaged more than 600 daily flights, with aircraft arriving in the city every three minutes, throughout the 15-month duration. Unlike Berlin, Gaza does not even have an airport. Israel destroyed it starting in 2001.
"Aid drops are not a solution. Not even a partial one. To end the humanitarian crisis, land or sea routes must be opened, allowing for the necessary massive supplies," wrote former Colonel Mark Cancian in an analysis for the International Strategic Studies Center.
Authorities in Amman have also attempted to assist Palestinians in Gaza by repeatedly sending trucks full of aid, but have also faced bureaucratic restrictions imposed by Israel and violent actions by Jewish fundamentalists once they reach the territory controlled by Tel Aviv. "The trucks have suffered dozens of attacks, including attempts at sabotage, theft, and waste of aid," explains Hussei Shebli, head of the Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organization, which coordinates most of the local assistance to the Strip.
The journey between the King Hussein Bridge and Gaza—approximately 300 kilometers—the access route used by Jordanian convoys, can take more than 12 hours and has become a journey steeped in uncertainty, adds Shebli, given the repeated ambushes suffered by "the trucks in various locations by settlers," with no intervention by the Israeli army to stop these attacks.
In parallel with the aircraft operation, Tel Aviv is allowing the entry of a limited number of aid transports. These are insufficient to cover the needs of Palestinians, but sufficient to partially reduce food prices in local Gaza markets, according to the Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat.
However, the controversy surrounding the airlift to Gaza is not limited to its effectiveness. Its objective is supposed to save lives, not end them. However, according to local authorities, five Palestinians died in March of last year when one of the parachutes failed and the pallet became a kind of unexpected projectile. Another 12 young people drowned while trying to rescue several packages that had fallen into the sea.
With the reactivation of the airborne operation, deadly incidents have occurred again. This Saturday, 15-year-old Muhannad Zakaria Eid lost his life in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza, his brother told Reuters. "He ran to pick up the boxes [of aid] that were falling into the sea. One fell directly on him, and he died. They throw boxes, not aid. They kill children," he commented.
The tragedy was repeated the day before. Another of the packages fell onto a balcony in Gaza City, causing chaos and a pile-up that eventually collapsed the small terrace. 18-year-old Adam al-Shorbasi died there. Nayef Abu Al-Qomboz told EL MUNDO that he had seen a group of young people running toward the parachute landing. "I followed the parachute with my eyes. It got stuck on the terrace of a restaurant. The kids climbed up to grab the food, and it collapsed. Some were injured, but others, indifferent, continued grabbing the food," he said. The Palestinian witnessed another group of young people evacuating a child with a large head wound. "There were no cars or ambulances. They loaded him into a horse-drawn cart," he adds.
Raji Hillis, 20, managed to grab something. "I got a kilo of dates," he notes. But even he questions the viability of such actions, noting that the meager amount of food ends up being divided into tiny portions amid the resulting scuffles. "Everyone takes a small piece. It's really risky to go to the airdrops," he explains.
This perception is shared by most of the Palestinians interviewed by this newspaper. "These airdrops must stop. My son isn't the first to die. That box fell in an empty restaurant. Imagine if it had fallen on a crowded store. It could have killed an entire family," recounts an indignant Jameel al-Shorbasi, Adam's father. For activist Ahmed Jouda, a displaced person from Jabalia who has found refuge in Nuseirat, these operations are not "real aid. It's just so Israel can say there's no hunger in Gaza. They're just deceptive photos."