March 1 (UPI) — President Joe Biden on Friday said the United States will begin aid airdrops into Gaza as negotiations for a temporary cease-fire continue.
Biden confirmed the latest development during a White House meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“Aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere nearly enough … lives are on the line,” Biden said as he announced the airdrops decision. “We should be getting hundreds of trucks in, not just several. We’re going to pull out every stop we can.”
The American airdrops are expected to begin in the coming days, according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
Jordan and other nations already have airdropped some supplies into Gaza.
On Thursday, Biden had acknowledged that the dozens of Palestinians killed while waiting in line for aid Thursday complicates cease-fire talks.
The war in Gaza is driving the civilian population to the brink of famine, according to the United Nations. A U.N. report released Friday said 10 children have starved to death in Gaza and that the unofficial starvation death toll possibly could be much greater.
U.N. World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said in a statement, “A very sad threshold … [but] the unofficial numbers can unfortunately be expected to be higher.”
Both the European Union and the U.N. are calling for an investigation into the killings of dozens of Palestinians waiting for food aid in Gaza. Witnesses and medics on the scene said Israeli troops fired on them. Israeli officials had said a melee broke out among the people waiting for aid and that its forces had to respond.
European Union Foreign Policy chief Josep Borell called it “totally unacceptable carnage” as French President Emmanuel Macron said the victims were “targeted by Israeli soldiers.”
Earlier this week the Ramesh Rajasingham, the U.N.’s director of coordination at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said a quarter of Gaza’s population are “one step away from famine.”
