GAZA STRIP: Jordan’s air force launched on Tuesday the biggest air bridge so far to bring urgent medical supplies to Gaza under a US-sponsored deal to step up deliveries following a ceasefire, officials said.
The operation involves 16 helicopter flights a day that will at first deliver at least 160 tons of life-saving medical supplies over a week to hospitals and medical centers, army officials said.
Under an agreement sponsored by the US, Israel had allowed Jordan to deliver aid to a designated location near Israel’s Kissufim border crossing with the devastated Gaza Strip.
A helicopter pad in a spot that lies in a central area connecting the northern and southern parts of the enclave would help facilitate speedier deliveries, according to aid officials.
UN agencies led by the World Food Programme would then deliver them directly to medical centers and hospitals.
“More aid is needed for the Palestinian people in Gaza. There is a terrifying state of destruction. There is a terrifying state of suffering that the Palestinian people are living,” Jordan’s Minister of State for Communications Mohamed Momani told reporters at an air base where Black Hawk helicopters were taking off. Throughout the 15-month war, the UN has described its humanitarian operation as opportunistic — facing problems with Israel’s military operations, access restrictions by Israel, and more recently looting by Gazan armed gangs.
Since an agreement on a ceasefire, Jordan has sent seven overland convoys with at least 540 trucks through a corridor across the Israeli-occupied West Bank to Gaza, officials said.
“In this air corridor we deliver that urgent aid that could be damaged by their transport on trucks,” Brig. Gen. Mustafa Al-Hayari said.
The staunch US ally has arranged at least 147 convoys comprising 5,569 trucks since the conflict and also spearheaded 391 air drops by its air force alongside a coalition of Western and Arab countries.
King Abdullah has been lobbying Washington to push Israel to expand the aid corridor from Jordan to allow large volumes of aid to quickly cross.
The monarch has said Israel is to blame for delaying aid by hurdles and delaying tactics that have worsened the humanitarian plight of over 2 million people who live in the enclave. Israel denies it impedes aid flows.
Jordan launches air corridor for life-saving medicines into Gaza
https://arab.news/4yymb
Jordan launches air corridor for life-saving medicines into Gaza
- Jordan’s air force launches 16 helicopter flights daily for medical aid
- King Abdullah blames Israel for aid delays, Israel denies impeding flows
US plans meeting for Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ in Washington on Feb 19, Axios reports
- The Axios report cited a US official and diplomats from four countries that are on the board
- The plans for the meeting, which would also be a fundraising conference for Gaza reconstruction, are in early stages and could still change, Axios reported
WASHINGTON: The White House is planning the first leaders meeting for President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” in relation to Gaza on February 19, Axios reported on Friday, citing a US official and diplomats from four countries that are on the board.
The plans for the meeting, which would also be a fundraising conference for Gaza reconstruction, are in early stages and could still change, Axios reported.
The meeting is planned to be held at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, the report added, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet Trump at the White House on February 18, a day before the planned meeting.
The White House and the US State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
In late January, Trump launched the board that he will chair and which he says will aim to resolve global conflicts, leading to many experts being concerned that such a board could undermine the United Nations.
Governments around the world have reacted cautiously to Trump’s invitation to join that initiative. While some of Washington’s Middle Eastern allies have joined, many of its traditional Western allies have thus far stayed away.
A UN Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the board and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza, where a fragile ceasefire began in October under a Trump plan on which Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas signed off.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan revealed late last year, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said it would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
Many rights experts say that Trump overseeing a board to supervise a foreign territory’s affairs resembled a colonial structure and have criticized the board for not including a Palestinian.The fragile ceasefire in Gaza has been repeatedly violated, with over 550 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers reported killed since the truce began in October. Israel’s assault on Gaza since late 2023 has killed over 71,000 Palestinians, caused a hunger crisis and internally displaced
Gaza’s entire population.
Multiple rights experts, scholars and a UN inquiry say it amounts to genocide. Israel calls its actions self-defense after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages in a late 2023 attack.
