Airdrops of food in Gaza a display of hypocrisy

This handout picture released by the Jordanian Army on Feb 29, 2024 shows humanitarian aid being dropped from a military aircraft over northern Gaza. [Photo/Agencies]

On Saturday, the US military began dropping food over the war-torn Gaza Strip where 2 million people have been in desperate need of humanitarian aid.

According to the US Central Command in a statement, planes of the US and Jordanian air forces dropped over 38,000 pallets of food aid along the coastline. The two countries are also "conducting planning for potential follow-on airborne aid delivery missions". That's a rare demonstration of humanity from the US over the Gaza crisis.

The entire population of Gaza is suffering from food shortage, of which 478,000 people are at "crisis" levels while 576,600 are at the "catastrophic" level.

That's why people rushed to the food trucks that arrived on Thursday. But Israeli forces opened fire on them, killing at least 112 people. It's Israel's blockade of Gaza that has turned the Palestinian enclave of 365 square kilometers into the biggest outdoor prison for the 2.2 million people living there. While Israeli attacks have killed over 30,000 people in the latest round of bloodshed since Oct 7 last year.

However, the US, as the largest and staunchest supporter of Israel, has kept its unconditional bias toward Israel regardless of Israel's ruthless assault on the Palestinians in Gaza.

In this round of conflict alone, Washington has four times vetoed United Nations Security Council's resolutions on Gaza aimed at securing at least a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian aid to enter the zone. The prolonging of the Palestine question for decades has much to do with the US standing firmly behind Israel, no matter what Tel Aviv does.

The US sabotages joint pro-peace efforts of the international community to serve its own interests. The US has never truly cared about the Palestinians and the Israeli hostages. Its airdrops of food in Gaza is nothing but an ugly show of its hypocrisy.