Human rights advocates argue that airdrops and maritime routes are an insufficient substitute to aid delivery by land.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/17490070

humanitarian organizations, many of which have been sounding alarms about the hunger crisis in Gaza for months, are not impressed. They argue that air and sea deliveries are not only an insufficient substitute for humanitarian aid delivered by land, but a dehumanizing one that acts as a distraction to the man-made barriers that have prevented more aid from getting into Gaza in the first place. “There is no good reason why aid cannot access Gaza by road today,”

  • @[email protected]English
    50•4 months ago

    It took over 1,500 flights a day to supply West Berlin during the blockade and that’s with a comparable sized population who weren’t being murdered every day.

    A few air drops will never be sufficient.

    • @[email protected]English
      30•4 months ago

      It’s not meant to be sufficient, it is meant to make Biden look like he’s doing something other than merely prolonging the slaughter by sending arms to Israel.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•4 months ago

        it is meant to make Biden look like he’s doing something other than merely prolonging the slaughter by sending arms to Israel.

        How does sending arms to Israel prolong the war? It should rather speed up its resolution, I would think?

    • @[email protected]English
      27•4 months ago

      There is no comparison of the load of a C130 and a WWII era plane. Still, it’s not enough, though. A lot of empty stomachs

    • BuelldozerEnglish
      15•4 months ago

      It took over 1,500 flights a day to supply West Berlin during the blockade and that’s with a comparable sized population who weren’t being murdered every day.

      Two million people took ~4,500 tons a day. The C-54 carried 10 tons, meaning that it only required 450 flights per day. Comments like yours are based on the older C-37 and / or the Easter Push where the Allies did a maximum effort run just to flex on the Soviets.

      In 2024 a C-130 Hercules has a max payload of 21 tons, over double the C-54, meaning that required flights would potentially be reduced to 225.

      Then you have to consider that Operation Vittles was also delivering COAL, something that the citizens of Gaza probably don’t need.

      200 flights a day would do it but that still doesn’t excuse Israel for preventing aid via land routes.

      • @[email protected]English
        14•4 months ago

        Berlin was an airlift operation, not an air drop. They landed the aircraft at several airports, and directly offloaded cargo to trucks.

        AFAIK, Gaza has no operational airports, which greatly complicates the logistics of an airlift mission on the scale of Berlin.

        If we are considering this sort of mission, we’re looking at sealift, not airlift. Our historical precedence will be the Mulberry harbors set up to support the Normandy invasion.

        • @[email protected]English
          10•4 months ago

          Gaza does not have any operational airports, since Israel bombed the control tower at Yasser Arafat airport in 2001 and bulldozed the runway in 2002.