Together with Jordan, Germany wants to set up an airlift to supply the Gaza Strip with humanitarian goods. This step will be taken “immediately,” said Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) after a meeting of the Security Cabinet in Berlin. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) will coordinate closely with France and Great Britain, which are also prepared to participate in an airlift of food and humanitarian goods.
The aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has sharply criticized the airlift plans. Jean Guy Vataux, the organization’s emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip, said that “dropping humanitarian aid from the air is a pointless initiative,” whereas it would be much more effective to bring relief supplies to the coastal area in trucks.
“There are roads, the trucks are there, the food and medicine are there, everything is ready to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.” Airdrops comprised far less than 20 tons of aid that could be transported in a single truck without complications, Vataux said. “The only thing that is needed now is a decision by the Israeli authorities to allow imports by land.”
