Queen Rania says aid airdrops ‘just drops in an ocean of unmet needs’

Queen Rania of Jordan discusses the severity of the Israeli siege on Gaza and the famine gripping the besieged strip. In an interview on CNN with Christiane Amanpour, she said the situation in Gaza has been ‘a slow-motion mass murder of children, five months in the making.’ Speaking about the aid airdrops into Gaza that various countries participated in including Jordan, she said they are ‘desperate measures in order to address a desperate situation’. ‘These airdrops are literally just drops in an ocean of unmet needs,’ she said. ‘So countries should not use them as a way out, nor should they be viewed as an excuse for not doing what needs to be done, and that is implementing an immediate and sustained ceasefire, opening all access points into Gaza particularly land routes, streamlining the inspection process, and making sure that there is safe access within Gaza so that the aid can be distributed.’

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Jordan’s Queen Rania has condemned Israel over its continued blocking of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, while it ploughs ahead with its offensive, accusing Occupation Forces of deliberately and systematically starving the Gazan population.

In an interview with CNN yesterday, in which Queen Rania spoke from an airbase in Jordan where air drops of supplies to Gaza are coordinated, she welcomed the Islamic holy month of Ramadan as a period of happiness for families, but highlighted the Palestinians’ suffering in Gaza amid the ongoing Israeli invasion and siege of the Strip.

“This year we will welcome the holy days with very heavy hearts … but what is it like for the people of Gaza today who are hungry and thirsty and living in tents and makeshift shelters and mourning their dead?”

Stating that the situation is the result of a “deliberate” and “systematic” process of intended starvation by the Israeli Occupation Forces, she stressed that the lack of essential food and medical supplies caused by the blockade is affecting the most vulnerable people in the besieged Territory, such as the wounded, elderly and children.

READ: Israel once again takes aim at Gazans waiting for aid

“This has been a slow-motion, mass murder of children, five months in the making,” Queen Rania said. “Children who were thriving and healthy just months ago are wasting away in front of their parents. Starvation is a very slow, cruel and painful death. Your muscles shrink, your immune system shuts down, your organs give out.”

The Jordanian Royal insisted that “It is absolutely shameful, outrageous and entirely predictable what’s happening in Gaza today, because it was deliberate.”

Israel’s blocking and restriction of much of the humanitarian aid waiting to get into Gaza has resulted in a humanitarian crisis within the Strip, with other countries such as Jordan and the United States being forced to resort to airdropping aid packages over Gaza – something that is not without danger and has already killed at least five people.

There are emerging further efforts to allow aid to reach the Strip, the latest being a ship sailing from Cyprus today carrying 200 tonnes of aid, in an attempt to open a sea route to deliver supplies to the starving population. Israeli forces’ reaction to the vessel remains unknown for now, but there is rampant speculation that they would move to prevent or restrict it from fully reaching Gaza.

READ: Aid wars over Gaza: resuming donations for UNRWA

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