The US will begin air dropping food aid to the people of Gaza, President Joe Biden announced on Friday, as the humanitarian crisis deepens and Israel continues to resist opening additional land crossings to allow more assistance into the war-torn strip.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Biden said the US would be “pulling out every stop” to get additional aid into Gaza, which has been under heavy bombardment by Israel since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

“Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough,” the US President said, noting “hundreds of trucks” should be entering the enclave.

Biden said the US is “going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need, no excuses”.

He also noted the efforts to broker a deal to free the hostages and secure an “immediate ceasefire” that would allow additional aid in.

  • Atyno@dmv.social
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    8 months ago

    I feel like it was that gunning down incident with the humanitarian aid that ultimately tipped the scales.

    I know I’ve been going on defense for Israel a lot recently, but I am kinda playing messenger boy as a neutral for being both here and some pro-Israel groups. The Michigan vote didn’t really phase them, that incident did. Seen them even sharing more info about how ridiculously strict Bibi is with aid in general.

    • GrymEdm@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I think the Michigan vote and subsequent media coverage was meaningful, but I agree there’s no denying the shooting had a big impact. Thank you for adding that perspective. My guess is having both happen so close to each other increased the total effect. Regardless, it’s going to be an important 10 days coming up.

      • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Realistically it’s probably both in some sort of confluence, the campaign hears the uncommitted vote news and then the massacre happens and they see it as an opportunity to about face without making it look like they are back tracking previous moves. It’s cynical as hell but I think it’s probably likely

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Nah israel did shootings like that every week. Biden doesn’t care about brown people dying. I’d argue that the hospital massacre israel committed was far worse optically

      Michigan did this. All the people that refused to bend the knee and vote for Biden in December if he continues the Genocide.

      And Aaron Bushnell. His sacrifice was a huge turning point.

      • Atyno@dmv.social
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        8 months ago

        You’d think that, but humans can be weird with what actually causes introspection.

        The hospital thing they just took the official line for. They actually mocked Aaron, or were actually grateful he took his own life thinking he was a disturbed individual.

        Edit: If you want to understand the logic: they’re willing to turn a blind eye if they can “both sides” incidents so they can simply keep their position of “Israel has a right to defend itself, regardless if they’re not saints about it”.

        The humanitarian aid story is getting them because Bibi won’t even let them do that! Hence why I mentioned the story sharing, since they know Bibi had made it clear he wants to starve Palestinians.

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      8 months ago

      Oh it’s absolutely from the mass shooting and terror incident at the humanitarian aid delivery.

      The optics on that are awful and being repressed pretty hard since there really ain’t going to be a good look for that.

      “The IDF soldiers were scared” oh grow up.

      But Biden was insistent that he was heading towards a cease fire that probably got massively pushed back because of that incident crushing even more of the little remaining trust in Israel by citizens of Palestine.

      Air dropping food in away from soldiers makes it so it’s an obvious sign that it’s not a trap from IDF shows they understand there is starvation and tries to claw back the trust at least in the US of being helpful. Probably expect a lot more aid and some heavy pushing from the US to look trustworthy to start talks through.