Ben Pawlowski
THIS is the moment twelve tonnes of much-needed food were dropped into war-torn Gaza by a Spanish military transport aircraft.
Video footage posted on social media by Spain’s Ministry of Defence show dozens of parcels of food airdropped with parachutes into the famine-torn Strip.
Earlier this week, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez described the situation in Gaza as ‘a shame for all of humanity’ and that ‘stopping it…is a moral imperative’.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, over 150 people – including 89 children – have died of starvation since the start of the conflict in 2023.
On Tuesday, UN-backed global food security experts raised alarm bells, warning that the worst-case scenario of famine is ‘currently playing out’ in Gaza.
READ MORE: Spain’s King Felipe VI calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and brands the deadly conflict ‘unacceptable’
Israeli authorities have denied claims of famine in the region, instead blaming allegations of mass malnutrition on Hamas or international aid organisation.
But the Spanish government – long-term supporters of Palestine – have taken a very different view, with foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares describing the crisis as a ‘disgrace for Israel and for humanity’.
Speaking at a UN meeting on Monday, Albares admitted the aid delivery was a ‘drop in the ocean’ in comparison to the level of support required to stave off mass famine.
But the foreign minister was adamant that words were ‘no longer enough’.
“What we cannot allow – and it is clear that there are many of us who think this way – is for the State of Israel to have a kind of veto right over peace in the Middle East, a veto right over the existence or not of the Palestinian state, or worse still, a macabre veto right over the life or death of 100,000 Palestinian children,” he told the meeting.
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