UN official criticises 'costly' Gaza airdrops as aid efforts quicken

TEL AVIV: Airdrops of humanitarian aid are 'at least 100 times' more expensive than delivering the same amount of supplies by land, a senior UN official said on Friday, as more countries began parachuting food and medicine into the sealed-off Gaza Strip.
'Trucks carry twice as much aid as planes', Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN's refugee agency for Palestinians, wrote on X.
'If there is political will to allow airdrops — which are highly costly, insufficient & inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings'.
Since last Sunday, aircraft from Israel, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have been dropping pallets of aid into Gaza. Germany and France joined the effort on Friday.
The airdrops aim to help around 2 million Palestinians facing extreme shortages of food and other essentials. UN agencies and humanitarian experts continue to warn of an impending famine in the territory.
'As the people of Gaza are starving to death, the only way to respond to the famine is to flood Gaza with assistance', Lazzarini wrote.
Lazzarini said his agency, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, alone has 6,000 lorries waiting to enter the territory. — dpa