LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Deaths from hunger in Gaza continue to climb by the day. Over the weekend, Gaza's hospitals recorded another 18 deaths from malnutrition. More than a hundred aid groups say Israel is obstructing, weaponizing and restricting food and other aid into Gaza, claims Israel denies. NPR's Aya Batrawy takes a look at one of the methods being used to bring in aid and why they're ineffective.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Over the past nearly two years, Gaza's skies have roared with Israeli fighter jets, buzzed with drones and been littered by countless Israeli leaflets with orders for people to follow. For the past month, it's also sounded like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLANE WHIRRING)
BATRAWY: Cargo planes hum overhead, dropping crates of food that tumble down with parachutes. A dozen countries - ranging from the UAE and Jordan to France, Germany and recently Indonesia - are dropping food into Gaza this way. But Gaza is just 25 miles long and three to 7 miles wide. Some of these airdrops have landed in the sea near Israeli naval ships or in military zones blocked to Palestinians, about 90% of the territory now, according to the U.N. They're within eyesight of starving people who can't reach them. On the ground, it also looks like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ODAI AL-QERAAN: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: Food has landed from an airdrop in central Gaza. Children are scrambling, trying to pick up pieces of what looks like dried bread off the ground. Odai al-Qeraan (ph) moves one of the kids out of the way and bends down to grab a fistful of what's basically dirt.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
O AL-QERAAN: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: He says, "is this how to bring aid to people who are hungry and tormented? The food is all sand," he says. "This isn't how to bring aid to people. This is how to humiliate them," he says.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
O AL-QERAAN: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: In this video shared widely online, al-Qeraan asks why can't more food be delivered humanely through Gaza's borders with Israel? "Why can't Arab countries truck this in?" he says.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
O AL-QERAAN: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: "Show us mercy," he pleads. A few days later, al-Qeraan was killed when a crate from an airdrop plummeted down, crushing him underneath.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
NEDA’H AL-QERAAN: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: I reached his wife, Neda'h al-Qeraan (ph), on the phone.
N AL-QERAAN: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: She's devastated, her voice drowned in grief.
N AL-QERAAN: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: She says her husband's dream was to work as a nurse. The closest the 32-year-old got was volunteering as one during the war. She says al-Qeraan struggled most these past four months after Israel blocked all food and aid from entering Gaza. He'd ask friends for flour, and about a month ago started chasing airdrops when Israel began allowing them under international pressure. Al-Qeraan was desperate to feed their 5-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son. Now that he's gone, she says she barely eats. Her kids rely on relatives for one meal a day of rice or macaroni.
N AL-QERAAN: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: "We were supposed to continue this life together," she cries. There have been others killed in recent airdrops, including a 14-year-old boy. Another teenage boy remains on life support after a crate smashed his skull. Aid groups say a truckload of food carries about four times what an airdrop can, and they say this solution is sitting right across the border.
JENS LAERKE: There should be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and more hundreds of trucks. Not only every day, not only every week, but for months, possibly years to come.
BATRAWY: Jens Laerke of the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA says Israel must open more land crossings for that and the war must end.
Aya Batrawy, NPR News, with reporting by Anas Baba in Gaza City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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