Conflicts: Gaza instead of Wunstorf: The Air Force in Aid Use

The LUKE of the Transport Airbus 400m opens three minutes before the drop, the view only falls on the sea, a little later on the Gaza Strip 600 meters below. Gliessing sun falls on debris as far as the eye can see. Not to be recognized from here: the people down there who are threatened by a famine. The cargo, which now slides out of the plane on parachutes to the ground.

“Always feels very positive”

“It always feels very positive for me because I know that we help people with it,” says the pilot of one of the Bundeswehr machines, Stabhauptmann Dieter, he omits his last name. Since Friday, the Bundeswehr has been making such drops with its transport machines, which are usually stationed in Wunstorf in Lower Saxony. Now she lets journalists look over her shoulder. A dpa reporter is on board.

Nobody knows how many of the goods from the plane land on the ground for which they are intended. From German security circles it was said at the weekend, 50 to 100 percent of the goods would branch off the Hamas or other criminal organizations – but this applies to aid deliveries as a whole.

“Like plasters on open wounds”

Aid organizations see the whole thing skeptical, if better than nothing. “In this location, air drops act like plasters on open wounds: expensive, risky and hardly controllable,” says the representative of the UN World Food program (WFP) in Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein, Martin Frick, the German Press Agency in Berlin. “In overcrowded humanitarian zones, an orderly distribution with relief goods that come from the air is hardly possible-the risk of injury is high, the costs are 34 times higher than in land transports.”

Pilot Dieter does not see such dangers “because our drop zone is wide enough”. Even if the umbrella tears off, the cargo falls on the ground where nobody is standing. “We are looking for our drop zones very well.”

Rice, flour, sugar, pasta, canned food

Two German machines, each with 22 pallets – each with approximately 500 kilograms of weight – took course on the Gaza Strip from a Jordanian King Abdullah II Air Base. Each Bundeswehr machine throws eleven to twelve tons of goods per flight. According to the Bundeswehr, there have been almost 75 tons since Friday.

“We don’t know what we get in advance,” says Leutnant Sascha. “So far this has been a colorful mix of food, individual boxes, 20 kilos, with all possible: rice, flour, sugar, pasta, nobody. Around 30 Bundeswehr soldiers pack the goods, almost 15 are included as a crew for the two A400M.

Parachute “Self -Bau”

The olive green parachutes that open over the pallets are old passenger parachutes, explains Sascha, “Self -Bau brand”. “We used materials for our system that are freely available everywhere, which offers us the opportunity to reduce the costs per system to a few hundred euros.”

In March, Israel imposed an almost complete blockage of aid deliveries in the Gaza Strip, where it wages war against Islamist Hamas. This should increase the pressure on the terrorist organization, to release the 50 remaining hostages. From May onwards, smaller quantities of aid deliveries were allowed again.

Food are ready outside the Gaza Strip

For a week now, Israel has not only allowed air drops after international pressure, but also grants around 200 trucks from UN and other organizations every day. According to the UN, people threaten to famine.

According to its information, more than 170,000 tons of food alone are in the region or on the way there. This is enough to feed the entire population of the Gaza Strip of around 2.1 million people for almost three months – if they came in.

Israel starts new distribution process

According to official information, Israel has now started a new procedure for gradual and controlled recording of the import of goods by the private sector. Selected Palestinian dealers should participate in this. The aim is to increase the amount of relief goods for the population in the Gaza Strip and at the same time reduce dependence on the United Nations and other international organizations.

Since the end of May, the controversial Gaza Humanitrian Foundation (GHF), which is also supported by the USA, has been distributed in parallel to the use of international aid organizations in addition to Israel. But in the vicinity of the four GHF centers in the Gaza Strip there were always fatal incidents.

Use sure, says the pilot – but a residual risk

According to Pilot Dieter, the deployment is pretty safe for the Bundeswehr soldiers. “The airspace is not dangerous for us at the moment. Only in the Gaza area, we have to protect ourselves. There is a certain residual risk.” The German pilots are only briefly staying over the Gaza strip itself, dropping away. So you want to keep the risk as low as possible.

A permanent solution should not be your commitment. “Airdops are only a small contribution to relieve the suffering of the people in Gaza,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) wrote to X. “That is why we continue to work intensively to provide help through the country path.”

Hamas attack triggered the war

The trigger of the Gaza War was the attack by Hamas and other Islamist terrorist organizations to Israel on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were delayed as hostages into the Gaza strips.

As the health authority controlled by Hamas announced on Tuesday, more than 61,000 Palestinians were killed in the past 22 months. More than 150,600 other people suffered injuries. Most of the victims are said to be women, minors and the elderly.

The numbers cannot be checked independently and do not distinguish between civilians and fighters. However, they see UN organizations largely reliable.