The United States is pressing to promote a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. President Joe Biden, in the meeting at the White House with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, reiterated the priority for Washington: “We are trying to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas for the return of the hostages and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for at least the next six weeks.” The goal is “to allow increased aid to the population of the entire Gaza Strip, not just the south.”
“We will insist that Israel facilitates the entry into Gaza of more trucks and (opens, ed.) more routes to provide more and more people with the help they need. There are no excuses, because the truth is that aid arriving in Gaza now is nowhere near enough. Innocent lives, even children, are at stake,” Biden says.
The picture is still shaken by the death of at least 112 people on Thursday 29 February in Gaza City, after Israeli troops opened fire while civilians were waiting for the delivery of food aid. “We have asked the Israeli government to investigate and it is our opinion that they are taking this seriously and that they are investigating what happened, so as to prevent tragedies like this from happening again,” explains National Security Council spokesman John Kirby to journalists during the usual briefing.
The US is preparing aid from the sky
Kirby points to previous examples of Israel investigating incidents and says the Israeli government has been “very honest and frank” about mistakes. The spokesperson clarifies that Israel has not been given a timeline for completing the investigation. “With the end of the fighting, aid will be able to flow more freely and more, and hostages – starting with women, the elderly and the wounded – will be able to be released in stages,” he says. “We will continue to work on this and we will work very, very hard in the coming days.”
The white smoke between Israel and Hamas is a target and “an agreement that kicks off a six-week ceasefire is currently on the table.” In the meantime, however, Washington is preparing to operate with air drops of aid. The first should take place in the next few days. “There are few military operations more complicated than airdrops of humanitarian assistance… because so many parameters have to be exactly right,” Kirby explains, noting that the US military will have to make sure the aid lands somewhere in a war zone, that of Gaza, densely populated, accessible to humanitarian organizations in charge of distribution.
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