Geneva:

Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 38,000 people, mostly civilians, and driven most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people from their homes.

The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas operatives rushed across the border into Israeli communities. Israel says the operatives killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and dragged 253 into captivity in Gaza.

This explainer examines how the Palestinian death count is calculated, how reliable it is, the breakdown of civilians and fighters killed and what each side says.

HOW DO GAZA HEALTH AUTHORITIES CALCULATE THE DEATH COUNT?

In the first months of the war, death counts were calculated entirely from counting bodies that arrived in hospitals and data included names and identity numbers for most of those killed.

As the conflict ground on, and fewer hospitals and morgues continued to operate, the authorities adopted other methods too.

From early May, the Health Ministry updated its breakdown of total fatalities to include unidentified bodies which account for nearly a third of the overall deaths. Omar Hussein Ali, head of the ministry’s emergency operations centre in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said these were bodies that had arrived at hospitals or medical centres without personal data such as identity numbers or full names.

It also began including deaths reported online by family members who had to input information including identity numbers.

IS THE GAZA DEATH COUNT COMPREHENSIVE?

The numbers “do not necessarily reflect all victims due to the fact that many victims are still missing under the rubble”, the Palestinian Health Ministry says. In May it estimated that some 10,000 bodies were uncounted in this way.

The Lancet medical journal published a letter from three academics on July 5 estimating that indirect deaths, caused by factors such as disease, might mean the death count is several times higher than official Palestinian estimates.

The letter said it was “not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza”.

The authors said the figure, which made global headlines, was based on what they said was the conservative estimate of four indirect deaths to one direct death based on trends from prior conflicts.

The U.N. human rights office and the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health have also said during the conflict that the true figures are likely higher than those published, without giving specifics.

HOW CREDIBLE IS THE GAZA DEATH COUNT?

Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and better health information systems than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters.

A spokesperson for the World Health Organisation said the ministry has “good capacity in data collection/analysis and its previous reporting has been considered credible”.

The United Nations regularly cites the ministry’s death count figures, while naming the ministry as the source.

Early in the conflict, after U.S. President Joe Biden cast doubt on casualty figures, the health ministry published a detailed list of the 7,028 deaths that had been registered by that point.

Academics looking at details of listed casualties said in a peer-reviewed article in the Lancet medical journal in November that it was implausible that the patterns shown in the list could be the result of fabrication.

However, there are specific questions over the inclusion of 471 people said to have been killed in an Oct. 17 blast at al-Ahli al-Arab hospital in Gaza City. An unclassified U.S. intelligence report estimated that death count “at the low end of the 100 to 300 spectrum”.

DOES HAMAS CONTROL THE FIGURES?

While Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, the enclave’s Health Ministry also answers to the overall Palestinian Authority ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Gaza’s Hamas-run government has paid the salaries of all those hired in public departments since 2007, including in the Health Ministry. The Palestinian Authority still pays the salaries of those hired before then.

The extent of Hamas control in Gaza now is difficult to assess with Israeli forces occupying most of the territory, including around locations of major hospitals that provide casualty figures, and with fighting ongoing.

WHAT DOES ISRAEL SAY?

Israeli officials have said the figures are suspect because of Hamas’ control over government in Gaza. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Mamorstein said the numbers were manipulated and “do not reflect the reality on the ground”.

However, Israel’s military has also accepted in briefings that the overall Gaza casualty numbers are broadly reliable.

In May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 14,000 Hamas fighters and 16,000 Palestinian civilians had been killed in the war.

HOW MANY CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED?

The Health Ministry figures do not differentiate between civilians and Hamas combatants, who do not wear formal uniform or carry separate identification.

Israel periodically provides estimates of how many Hamas fighters it believes have been killed. The most recent was Netanyahu’s estimate of 14,000.

Israeli security officials say such estimates are reached through a combination of counting bodies on the battlefield, intercepts of Hamas communications and intelligence assessments of personnel in targets that were destroyed.

Hamas has said Israeli estimates for its losses are exaggerated but has not said how many of its fighters have been killed.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 70% of the dead are women and children. For most of the conflict its figures showed children as representing slightly over 40% of all those killed.

However, conditions in hospitals compiling figures have worsened amid the fighting and many of those killed may not be identifiable due to their injuries.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jerusalem:

Days after Israel announced a daily pause in fighting on a key route to allow more aid into Gaza, chaos in the besieged Palestinian territory has left vital supplies piled up and undistributed in the searing summer heat.

More than eight months of war, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, have led to dire humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip and repeated UN warnings of famine.

Desperation among Gaza’s 2.4 million population has increased as fighting rages, sparking warnings from agencies that they are unable to deliver aid.

Israel says it has let supplies in and called on agencies to step up deliveries.

“The breakdown of public order and safety is increasingly endangering humanitarian workers and operations in Gaza,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, said in a briefing late Friday.

“Alongside the fighting, criminal activities and the risk of theft and robbery has effectively prevented humanitarian access to critical locations.”

But Israel says it has allowed hundreds of trucks of aid into southern Gaza, trading blame with the United Nations over why the aid is stacking up.

It shared aerial footage of containers lined up on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom crossing and more trucks arriving to add to the stockpile.

The October Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 41 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 37,551 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

The blame game

With civil order breaking down in Gaza, the UN says it has been unable to pick up any supplies from Kerem Shalom since Tuesday, leaving crucial aid in limbo.

A deputy UN spokesman this week said the crossing “is operating with limited functionality, including because of fighting in the area”.

William Schomburg, International Committee of the Red Cross chief in Rafah, said arranging lorries from the Egyptian side in particular was complicated.

“It’s not just a question of civil order, but also the fact that you often have to cross battlefields,” he said in an online briefing, adding that the area near Kerem Shalom had been hostile.

“There were even rockets fired nearby. So this whole area is particularly complicated to navigate for reasons linked to the hostilities and for reasons linked to general security.”

Israel’s coordinator for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, said Thursday “the content of 1,200 aid trucks awaits collection by UN aid agencies”, saying a lack of distribution was responsible.

Earlier in the week, COGAT spokesman Shimon Freedman told reporters at the crossing the daily pause on a southern road into Gaza was designed to allow the UN “to collect and distribute more aid” alongside an Israeli military presence.

He said most of the aid had not moved because “organisations have not taken sufficient steps to improve their distribution capacity”.

‘Don’t see any aid’

Aid agencies have instead pointed to Israel’s offensive on the southern city of Rafah, which pushed out more than a million people and closed a border crossing with Egypt, as a deepening humanitarian crisis hampered relief efforts.

Schomburg described Rafah City as a “ghost town”.

“It is a ghost town in the sense that you see very few people, high levels of destruction, and really just another symbol of the unfolding tragedy that has become Gaza over the last nine months,” he said.

The UN food agency has said its aid convoys have been looted inside Gaza by “desperate people”.

As both sides stall, it is the civilians in Gaza who are paying the price.

“We don’t see any aid. Everything we get to eat comes from our own money and it’s all very expensive,” said Umm Mohammad Zamlat, 66, from northern Gaza but now living in Khan Yunis in the south.

“Even agencies specialised in aid deliveries are not able to provide anything to us,” she added.

NGO Doctors Without Borders said on Friday that six trucks with 37 tons of supplies, mostly essentially medical items, have been held up at the Egyptian part of Kerem Shalom since June 14.

“This is incomprehensible and unacceptable,” a statement said.

“It’s like asking a fireman to watch a house filled with people burn down, and preventing him putting out the fire.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinian Territories:

Hamas on Thursday called for an end to airdrops of aid after two Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza when a aid pallet crashed into a warehouse after its parachute failed to open.

Several countries, including the United States, Britain and France, have resorted to regular aid airdrops in northern Gaza, where humanitarian agencies have warned of a looming famine.

On Tuesday, two people died when an aid parachute fell on the roof of a warehouse where residents had gathered to collect relief supplies.

The latest fatalities take to at least 21 the number of people killed when airdrops of aid have gone disastrously wrong, according to the Hamas authorities.

“We reiterate that airdrops pose a real danger to the lives of citizens and do not provide a real solution to alleviate the food crisis plaguing northern Gaza,” Salama Marouf, head of the government’s media office in Gaza, said in a statement.

“We call for an immediate halt to the delivery of aid in this ineffective and erroneous manner, and we call for the full activation of the land crossings to deliver humanitarian aid to northern Gaza.”

With only a trickle of aid reaching the starving north and the United Nations warning of “imminent famine”, foreign governments have turned to airdrops to get aid into the territory.

Aid agencies say the situation has deteriorated this week after Israeli forces closed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after taking control of it.

Relief also has not been transferred into Gaza through the other main crossing between Israel and the Palestinian territory, Kerem Shalom, after it came under rocket fire three times since Sunday.

Meanwhile, a US container ship loaded with aid for Gaza left Cyprus Thursday in a new test of a maritime corridor to get relief into the besieged territory.

The US-flagged MV Sagamore left the port of Larnaca after being loaded with aid from Britain, Cyprus and the United States, Cyprus government spokesperson Yiannis Antoniou told the official CNA news agency.

US military engineers have been assembling a temporary pier for installation on the Gaza coast to unload maritime aid deliveries.

UN agencies and humanitarian aid groups have warned that maritime deliveries and airdrops cannot deliver aid in the quantities needed to avert acute food shortages for the 2.4 million people across Gaza.

Gaza has been devastated by the war which started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,904 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

The chief of the United Nations’ food program has warned of a “full-blown famine” in northern Gaza and reiterated calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas.

“There is famine, full-blown famine in the north and it’s moving its way south,” Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, said in an interview excerpt published Friday.

“What we are asking for and what we’ve continually asked for is a ceasefire and the ability to have unfettered access to get in safe… into Gaza — various ports, various gate crossings,” McCain continued.

The World Food Program is one of the many humanitarian groups trying to get aid into Gaza.

The World Health Organization said Friday that the availability of food in the Gaza Strip has very slightly improved, though the risk of famine continues in the besieged Palestinian territory, which is home to 2.4 million people.

Israel has repeatedly accused the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations of not distributing aid quickly enough.

The aid agencies blame the trickle of essential food into the Palestinian enclave on restrictions and inspections imposed by Israel.

The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The militants also took around 250 hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza, including 35 believed to be dead.

Israel’s devastating retaliatory campaign has killed at least 34,622 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jerusalem:

The amount of humanitarian aid going into the Gaza Strip will be ramped up in the coming days, Israel’s military said on Sunday, citing new corridors that use an Israeli seaport and border crossings into the Palestinian enclave.

After closing off access to Gaza following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that set off the war, Israel has since allowed in aid convoys amid growing international pressure to boost the amount of supplies to feed Gaza’s 2.3 million people.

A spiraling humanitarian crisis has prompted calls from Israel’s Western and Arab partners to do more to facilitate the entry of aid to the enclave, where most are homeless, many face famine, and where civilian infrastructure is devastated and disease widespread.

The United States said earlier this month it welcomed Israel’s latest efforts to allow in more humanitarian aid, but success would be measured in results in improving the situation on the ground.

“Over the last few weeks, the amount of humanitarian aid going into Gaza has significantly increased. In the coming days, the amount of aid going into Gaza will continue to scale up even more,” spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement.

“Food, water, medical supplies, shelter equipment and other aid – more of it is going into Gaza than ever before,” Hagari said.

Separately, U.S.-based charity World Central Kitchen said it would resume operations in the Gaza Strip on Monday, a month after seven of its workers were killed in an Israeli air strike.

Hagari said the aid increase is a result of using Israel’s Ashdod port, as well as a new crossing into northern Gaza and increased aid from Jordan entering through the Kerem Shalom border crossing at the southern tip of Gaza.

Israel is also working with U.S. Central Command to construct a “temporary maritime pier,” which will allow ship-to-shore distribution, Hagari said.

“Getting aid to the people of Gaza is a top priority -because our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza,” he added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Cairo:

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said Sunday in Cairo that delivering the necessary aid to famine-threatened Gaza “requires Israel removing the remaining obstacles and chokepoints to relief”.

Guterres repeated his call for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to alleviate “the plight of Palestinian children, women and men struggling to survive the nightmare in Gaza”, during a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

He had visited on Saturday the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, where nearly six months of war and siege have displaced the vast majority of the territory’s 2.4 million people and destroyed its civilian infrastructure.

“Looking at Gaza, it almost appears that the four horsemen of war, famine, conquest and death are galloping across it,” the UN chief said.

“The whole world recognises that it’s past time to silence the guns and ensure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” he continued.

The Israeli government is under growing international pressure to ease its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza, which the territory’s health ministry says have killed at least 32,226 people, most of them women and children.

The war was sparked on October 7 by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, which resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel has vowed to pursue its retaliatory military campaign all the way to Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians have sought shelter, penned in by the Egyptian border.

Guterres, who also met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, called the Rafah border crossing and Egypt’s El-Arish airport where assistance is sent “essential arteries for life-saving aid into Gaza”.

“But those arteries are clogged,” he said, with massive lines of trucks piled up on the Egyptian side, only trickling in as the humanitarian situation worsens.

Calls have mounted for Israel to ease its restrictions on aid and open more crossings into Gaza.

“Palestinians in Gaza desperately need what has been promised — a flood of aid. Not trickles. Not drops,” Guterres said.

The UN has repeatedly warned of famine in the Palestinian territory, particularly in the north, which has been largely cut off from aid deliveries.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Trucks of flour have reached northern Gaza for distribution to areas that have had no aid in four months, Palestinian media reported on Sunday, with famine looming in the enclave and truce talks between Israel and Hamas due to resume in Qatar.

A convoy of 12 trucks arrived in the north on Saturday – six in Gaza City and six in the Jabalia refugee camp – carrying supplies to also be distributed to the northernmost areas of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, the media and residents said.

The Hamas-linked Home Front media outlet reported that the aid was distributed by the “Popular Committees”, a group that includes leaders of powerful clans in Gaza. A Hamas source said the route was secured by Hamas security personnel.

Aid agencies have warned that pockets of Gaza already face famine, with hospitals in the north reporting children dying of malnutrition and dehydration.

The hunger crisis has piled international pressure on Israel more than five months into its ground and air campaign in Gaza, triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, with more talks for a ceasefire and hostage exchange expected in the coming days.

Hamas killed around 1,200 people in its attack and seized 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has now killed more than 31,500 Palestinians according to health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.

An Israeli strike overnight killed 12 people in one house in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the tiny, crowded Gaza Strip, the health ministry said, among 92 people it said had been killed in the previous 24 hours.

Israel’s stated war aim is to wipe out Hamas, and it has said this can only be achieved with an assault on Rafah on the border with Egypt, the last relatively safe place for civilians who have flocked to camps there from other parts of Gaza.

Israel’s Western allies have warned it against attacking Rafah, however, unless it is able to protect civilians. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday he had approved plans for an assault.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday after talks with Jordanian King Abdullah in Jordan that the large number of civilian casualties that would result from such an assault would make regional peace “very difficult”.

QATAR TALKS

A source familiar with the truce talks in Qatar told Reuters the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency would join the delegation attending the negotiations with Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. mediators and was expected in Doha on Sunday.

Hamas presented a new ceasefire proposal last week including an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s security cabinet is to meet to discuss it before the delegation leaves.

Netanyahu has already said the proposal was based on “unrealistic demands”, but a Palestinian official familiar with mediation efforts said chances for a deal looked better with Hamas having given more details on the proposed prisoner swap.

“The mediators felt positive about Hamas’ new proposal. Some in Israel felt the group made some improvement on its previous position and it is now in the hands of Netanyahu alone to say whether an agreement is imminent,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

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Washington, United States:

American cargo planes airdropped more than 36,000 meals to Gaza Tuesday in a joint operation with Jordan, the US military said, as the international community scrambles to curb a growing humanitarian crisis there.

Airdrops by the United States and other countries are aimed at supplementing what officials say is an insufficient supply of aid being brought in by ground to Gaza, where the United Nations has warned that famine is “almost inevitable.”

“US Central Command and the Royal Jordanian Air Force conducted a combined humanitarian assistance airdrop into Northern Gaza on March 5, 2024, at 2:30 p.m. (Gaza time) to provide essential relief to civilians affected by the ongoing conflict,” the military command said in a statement.

“US C-130s dropped over 36,800 US and Jordanian meal equivalents in Northern Gaza, an area of great need, allowing for civilian access to the critical aid,” CENTCOM said, adding that “we continue planning for follow-on aid delivery missions.”

The United States launched its first airdrop of food into Gaza on Saturday, and the White House official said it was “prepared to do more to increase aid, including through airdrops” and a possible maritime corridor.

Growing crisis

Gaza has faced relentless bombardment by Israel since Hamas launched a cross-border attack on October 7 that resulted in about 1,160 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Hamas-controlled Gaza has killed more than 30,600 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The amount of aid brought into Gaza by truck has plummeted during nearly five months of war, and Gazans are facing dire shortages of food, water and medicine.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that visits by the agency to northern Gaza over the weekend found a “lack of food resulted in the deaths of 10 children,” while the Gaza health ministry has said at least 16 children died of malnutrition in the territory’s north.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Monday that between 30 to 120 trucks per day had delivered aid to Gaza in the past week.

“That’s clearly not enough… to feed the population there,” Singh told journalists, while reiterating that airdrops are intended to supplement rather than replace aid brought in by ground.

On Thursday, more than 100 people were killed in chaotic scenes around a convoy of aid trucks in Gaza City.

Gaza health officials said Israeli forces opened fire into the crowd, causing a “massacre,” while Israel’s army said most victims were trampled or hit by trucks in a crush for food aid.

A United Nations team that visited a Gaza City hospital reported seeing “a large number” of gunshot wounds among Palestinians in the aftermath of the incident.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Gaza Border:

The United States, in collaboration with the Royal Jordanian Air Force, conducted an unprecedented humanitarian airdrop into Gaza, delivering 38,000 meals along the besieged coastal enclave, CNN reported, citing a statement from US Central Command (CENTCOM).

This initiative followed President Joe Biden’s remarks that the US would pull out “every stop” to get more aid into the besieged coastal enclave.

The operation, executed by the US Air Force using C-130 aircraft, saw a total of 66 bundles dropped along the Gaza coastline, with each of the three aircraft contributing 22 bundles. Notably, the airdropped supplies consisted solely of meals, with no inclusion of water or medical provisions, as reported by CNN.

“These airdrops are part of a sustained effort to get more aid into Gaza, including by expanding the flow of aid through land corridors and routes,” CENTCOM said in their statement.

White House officials hailed the operation as a success, viewing it as a pivotal test case for future endeavours. A senior administration official, during a call with reporters, said, “The fact that today’s airdrop was successful is an important test case to show that we can do this again in the coming days and weeks successfully.”

While applauding the accomplishment, President Biden acknowledged on social media that the amount of aid reaching Gaza was still insufficient. He reiterated the US commitment to spare no effort in increasing aid, aligning with his previous declaration to “pull out every stop” to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

In response to the airdrop, the Defence Department plans to conduct additional operations in the coming days, though specific details were not disclosed.

Biden’s commitment to securing more routes for aid into Gaza was reiterated, with the president saying, “We’re going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need, no excuses.”

This marks a historic move for the US, joining other nations like the United Arab Emirates and France in using airdrops to deliver aid. However, before the operation, several aid agencies criticized the US plan, citing concerns about its effectiveness. Richard Gowan, the International Crisis Group’s UN director, commented on social media, stating, “Humanitarian workers always complain that airdrops are good photo opportunities but a lousy way to deliver aid,” CNN reported.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

The US military will start carrying out airdrops of food and supplies into Gaza in the coming days, joining other countries like France, Jordan and Egypt that have done the same.

HOW WOULD AN AIRDROP OF AID WORK?

The United States will use military aircraft to drop supplies over Gaza. While it is unclear which type of aircraft will be used, the C-17 and C-130 are best suited for the job. According to the U.S. Air Force, a C-130 can hold 16 pallets while a C-17 can carry 40.

Military personnel on the ground load supplies onto the pallets, which are then loaded onto planes, and locked in place.

Once the aircraft is over the area where the supplies are needed, the lock holding them in place is released and they sail to the ground with the help of a parachute attached to the pallet.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS?

While the military can look at weather patterns ahead of time, the wind plays a large role in ensuring that they land where they should. Social media videos have shown some aid delivered by other countries ending up in the sea.

Gaza is densely populated and officials say it will be difficult to ensure that the aid reaches the people who need it and doesn’t end up in some place that is unreachable.

“It is extremely difficult to do an airdrop in such a crowded environment as is Gaza,” John Kirby, President Joe Biden’s top national security spokesperson, said.

Officials also say that without a US military presence on the ground, there is no guarantee that the aid will not end up in the hands of Hamas.

WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF PAST US AIRDROPS?

Each year over Christmas, it drops humanitarian aid to remote islands in the Pacific Ocean in an effort known as “Operation Christmas Drop.”

#DYK — Operation Christmas Drop is the world’s longest-running humanitarian & disaster relief mission. This year’s mission included aircraft from the U.S., Japan, the Republic of Korea, & for the first time, Canada.https://t.co/Llk7orRuF3pic.twitter.com/RyrsA8x7ho

— U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) December 13, 2023

In 2014, the United States military airdropped aid in northern Iraq, when civilians were trapped by Islamic State fighters. In those few months, more than 100,000 meals and 96,000 water bottles were airdropped.

WHAT ARE OPTIONS ARE BEING LOOKED AT?

On Friday, President Joe Biden told reporters that the US was also looking at the possibility of a maritime corridor to deliver large amounts of aid into Gaza.

A US official said one possible option is shipping aid by sea from Cyprus, some 210 nautical miles off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.

No decision has been made on military involvement in such an operation, said the official, adding the Israelis were “very receptive” to the sealift option because it would avoid delays from protesters blocking land crossings to aid convoys.

But the reality is that the maritime option using the military is highly challenging, with no clear location where the aid could be unloaded from ships.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)