\n Spain said on Monday it would airdrop 12 tonnes of food into Gaza this week as the threat of famine stalks the Palestinian territory after 21 months of war.\n <\/p>\n
The operation is a rare example of a European nation joining Middle Eastern countries in sending aid by air.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez, one of the most virulent critics of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, told a news conference the delivery would take place from Jordan on Friday using Spanish air force planes.<\/p>\n
“The famine in Gaza is a shame for all of humanity and stopping it, therefore, is a moral imperative,” he said.<\/p>\n
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The defence ministry said the 12 tonnes would be delivered in an operation similar to another carried out in March 2024, when Spain delivered 26 tonnes of food to Gaza.<\/p>\n
Israel’s war in Gaza for the past 21 months began in response to an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7th 2023.<\/p>\n
The devastated territory’s more than two million inhabitants are suffering a humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization has warned malnutrition in the occupied Palestinian territory has reached “alarming levels” since Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on March 2nd.<\/p>\n
In late May, Israel began allowing a small trickle of aid to resume but the levels reaching the strip have been far below what aid groups say is needed.<\/p>\n
In general, humanitarian officials are deeply sceptical that airdrops can deliver enough food safely to tackle the hunger crisis.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies his government is to blame for the dire situation and accuses the United Nations of fabricating “pretexts and lies about Israel”.<\/p>\n
On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “Conflict continues to spread hunger from Gaza to Sudan and beyond… We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain said on Monday it would airdrop 12 tonnes of food into Gaza this week as the threat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-299162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}