UN Slams Gaza Airdrop Aid as 'Inefficient and a Distraction' Amid Starvation Crisis

The commissioner of a United Nations agency criticized Western leaders' initiative to airdrop aid into the besieged Gaza enclave as "inefficient and a distraction," as the Israeli-driven starvation crisis deepens, claiming the lives of at least 122 Palestinians, 83 of whom were babies and children.

On Friday, Israel announced it would soon permit Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to coordinate with the UK, France, and Germany to conduct humanitarian airdrops over Gaza, The Times of Israel reported. The news came as more than 2.2 million Palestinians remain trapped in the besieged enclave, facing a worsening humanitarian catastrophe.

"#Gaza: airdrops will not reverse the deepening starvation," Philippe Lazzarini, the Swiss Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA), wrote in an X post shared Saturday. "They are expensive, inefficient & can even kill starving civilians. It is a distraction & screensmoke [sic]."

Since March 2, Israel has blocked nearly all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, creating conditions that aid agencies warn amount to deliberate starvation, a practice considered a war crime under international law. The ongoing siege has made food, clean water, and medical supplies nearly inaccessible.

In an attempt to ease the crisis, Israel and the United States opened four Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution sites at the end of May. However, these efforts have been marred by violence as more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and American mercenaries while trying to retrieve the aid.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The court alleges both are "responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare" beginning Oct. 8, 2023.

"A manmade hunger can only be addressed by political will," Lazzarini continued. "Lift the siege, open the gates & guarantee safe movements + dignified access to people in need. Allow the U.N. including @UNRWA & our partners to operate at scale & without bureaucratic or political hurdles."

Lazzarini added that UNRWA has 6,000 trucks in Jordan and Egypt "waiting for the green light to get into Gaza."

"Driving aid through is much easier, more effective, faster, cheaper & safer. It's more dignified for the people of #Gaza," he added.

In a follow-up post, Lazzarini described the dire conditions Palestinians in Gaza are enduring, quoting a colleague who said, "'People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.'" He added that UNRWA found that 1 in every 5 children in Gaza City is malnourished, a figure that increases daily.

"When child malnutrition surges, coping mechanisms fail, access to food & care disappears, famine silently begins to unfold. Most children our teams are seeing are emaciated, weak & at high risk of dying if they don't get the treatment they urgently need," he wrote, adding that frontline health workers, currently surviving on one small meal a day, are also fainting from hunger.

"When caretakers cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system is collapsing. Parents are too hungry to care for their children," the UNWRA commissioner wrote. "Those who reach UNRWA clinics don't have the energy, food, or means to follow medical advice."

"Families are no longer coping, they are breaking down, unable to survive. Their existence is threatened," he added, before stressing that UNRWA must be permitted to distribute food and medical supplies from the 6,000 aid trucks currently stalled in Jordan and Egypt.

Since October 2023, nearly 60,000 Palestinians have died, either directly from Israeli military actions or indirectly as a result of Israeli policies. During the same period, around 1,600 Israelis have been killed, with 1,200 of those deaths occurring on Oct. 7, 2023.