The Netherlands airdropped aid supplies to Gaza for the first time on Sunday evening. The Ministry of Defense carried out the operation in cooperation with Jordan with a C-130 transport plane.
This includes medical supplies dropped near a Jordanian field hospital in Gaza. The cost of the operation is estimated at about one million euros. The defense website shows pictures of relief materials, packed on large pallets bearing the Jordanian or Dutch flag.
Jordan had previously carried out such an airdrop with France, but the Netherlands had not yet done so in Gaza. For months, Israel has launched bloody attacks on the besieged Palestinian territories. As a result, much of Gaza is in ruins and there is a great need for water, food and medicine.
Wipe with the tap open
The Netherlands supplies parts of the weapons to Israel, but announced last week that it would investigate the possibility of dropping them by air. A Defense Ministry spokesman said that after Israel's approval and consultations with Jordan, the operation was carried out quickly.
Outgoing Development Aid Minister Jeffrey Van Leeuwen calls the token aid campaign on the X “very important.” He expressed his appreciation “to our soldiers who carried out the operation from the Netherlands.” “The people of Gaza urgently need more help,” Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins-Sloet said. Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren (Defence) wrote that “Defense remains ready to provide further humanitarian assistance.”
This method of providing aid to Gazans can “sometimes provide a solution for targeted deliveries,” the relevant ministers in the outgoing government said earlier. The government's priority remains the search for better access to aid by land. But trucks carrying food, medicine and other important goods are banned by Israel.
Israel has killed more than 27,400 Palestinians since October, and enjoys unconditional support from the outgoing government in The Hague. The Netherlands also stopped its aid to the United Nations refugee agency operating in the Palestinian territories (UNRWA) last week after Israel requested it.
