The aid, which consists of water, rice, cooking oil, flour, tinned goods and baby formula, will support the people of Gaza.
The Defence Secretary authorised the airdrop following an assessed reduction in threat to the military mission and risk to civilians.
An RAF A400M flew from Amman, Jordan to airdrop this aid along the northern coastline of Gaza, as part of the Jordanian-led international aid mission. UK personnel worked closely with the Royal Jordanian Air Force to plan and conduct this mission.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said:
“The UK has already tripled our aid budget to Gaza, but we want to go further in order to reduce human suffering. Today’s airdrop has provided a further way to deliver humanitarian support and I thank the RAF personnel involved in this essential mission, as well as our Jordanian partners for their leadership.
The hell that was unleashed by the October 7th Hamas attack has led to wide-scale innocent loss of life. The UK’s goal is to use every route possible to deliver life-saving aid, whether that is by road, air or new routes via the sea. We also continue to call on Israel to provide port access and open more land crossings in order to increase incoming aid deliveries to Gaza.”
The Ministry of Defence say here that the A400M is a highly capable tactical and strategic airlift platform and today’s airdrop was its first ever mission delivering humanitarian aid by parachute.
“Both RAF and British Army personnel participated in the mission. The drop zones were surveyed before and during the airdrop to ensure aid was delivered directly to civilians.
This airdrop is part of ongoing UK efforts to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza and follows recent land deliveries of 2,000 tonnes of UK food aid to feed more than 275,000 people and thousands of UK-funded blankets, tents and other relief items, as well as the establishment of a full UK-funded field hospital in Gaza run by British charity UK-Med. The UK remains committed to ensuring aid reaches those who need it most, as Palestinians continue to face a devastating and growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
Hi folks hope all is well.
Great to see the UK demonstrating once more stepping up at the same time main stream media ridicules our military saying how useless it is!
I thought we were also sending aid via RFA Lyme Bay and RFA Argus? Of course they may be in process of replenishment and going back. There is little information on this and is now out of date. The only information today is an RAF air drop.
Cheers
George
I have grave doubts about airdrops in situations like this. Unless you control or know that someone reliable has control on the ground, you can actually make things worse. Either the likes of Hamas or similar will take control of the goods, or outright anarchy (where sometimes more goods are destroyed by those it is intended for than actually ends up where it should). Better to come in by sea or land.
Aid to terrorist…..whatever next, why dont we airdrop them some AK and C4 as well?
I was being serious. Have a look at what happens to UN supply trucks. Quite often they get mobbed & stripped before they get anywhere near where they are trying to get to. If you are not careful, you will actually kill more people than you save. Desperate people do desperate things. People being trampled to death in emergency situations is nothing new. People using brute force to obtain scarce resources is nothing new. If you have to kill a few people to control the mobs, so be it. You will save more in the long run. Without control you… Read more »
Great to see some positive comments for a change, it’s Not just the mainstream media George, read half the comments on here you think that the UK has the most inept under equipped tiny military force in the world and is on the cusp of being invaded at any second.
Navy Lookout speculated Argus & Lyme Bay were transiting Bab-al-Mandab escorted by HMS Diamond. Marine trackers had them going south through the Suez Canal about two weeks ago.
As an update: Lyme Bay and Argus [LRG(S)] exercised with the India Navy in the Arabian Sea and have now arrived in Kattupalli, India, just north of Chennai, for maintenance.
Hi Jon, thanks for the update. Yes I had seen this yesterday with an explanation that their whereabouts was kept secret for obvious reasons. Apparently protection from HMS Diamond and two US Destroyers en route.
Cheers
George
i wonder if they’ll whine and complain and get mad that the MREs aren’t a 5 star gourmet meal like they did with american ones. helping people in that part of the world always seems to backfire.
Hopefully we airdropped sausages, bacon, pork pie…. I wonder if it was Halal?
All of that aid will be gobbled up by Hamas. A complete and utter waste. If the left want to be bleeding hearters, I’d rather they apologised for some imperial atrocities a century ago. It’d just be words and wouldn’t affect taxpayers. It would annoy ordinary people, but wouldn’t involve aid being sent to some of the nastiest people on the planet. Some student might even move on, feeling they’d done their bit to atone or whatever. I am utterly sickened by what I’m seeing here. We know Hamas have mass support, we know what Hamas do to innocent people.… Read more »
Difference is after the Indian Mutiny the British government actually listened to peoples justified complaints leading to the nationalisation of the east India company and the gradual move towards Indian independence.
Netanyahu is offering no such future. He said the two state solution is dead and refuses to offer Palestinians Israeli citizenship .
So where do people go?
It’s Netanyahu who will go. The two state solution is the only game in town, even if neither side accepts it at the moment.
Yes I agree
The two-state solution idea was killed off years ago by both the PLO and then by Hamas. They simply are not willing to share a homeland with people of Jewish faith and want them all gone.
In short, this conflict is all about religious/cultural supremacy,
Yes, but what solution can there be beyond two state?
Before a two-state solution can happen the people in the West bank and Gaza, need to accept that Israel exists and is not going to go away. Then Hamas must surrender its arms . at that point discussions can begin.
Without those conditions you can expect continuous conflict.
Bringer of facts wrote: “”Before a two-state solution can happen the people in the West bank and Gaza, need to accept that Israel exists and is not going to go away.”” And there stands the cornerstone of the quagmire that is the Israel question. and that if we look back in time using factual history and not revisionist history we find that actually Israel has gone above and beyond in which to seek peace. Yes , some will sneer and mock what I have just written, but ask yourself which one of you has actually got off your arse and… Read more »
A one state solution called Israel.
Correct
I say to the “bleeding heart” protestors who are regularly marching through our cities:
Do something practical with your energy, go to Gaza and deliver some aid by hand …. and I bet you won’t be thanked or welcomed especially if you are not Muslim.
I completely agree, frankly these people are evil and if there was a box to check between sending my tax to biscuits for animals or bombs for the IDF to drop on them – the the IDF would have every penny, and more. The sickening thing is that if this were ANY other democracy, fighting dictatorships, mass murderers, religious zealots, frankly stone age animals – we would be arming and supporting them to the utmost of our ability, and more. We can send arms to Ukraine (let’s be honest, we want them to beat Russia, , although they sadly won’t),but… Read more »
I’m glad that sleepy Joe is finally waking up at the UN and maybe coming to the conclusion that Israel is neither a US ally or its friend. Israel has been adept at crafting the US political narrative since 1948 however Netanyahu appears increasingly politically tone deaf in US politics and Israel has lost the support now of the other four members of the UNSC. Perhaps Old Joe can ask American other great ally the Republic of Ireland to do some supply drops next into Gaza. Hopefully Hamas can be got rid of and Gaza can move forward with a… Read more »
“Israel is neither a US ally or its friend”
Well, who is then?
Israel the US and Europe have more in common culturally than any other countries in that region. So of course they are going to be allies
BTW They do not want democracy, because that is seen as Western culture, they want Sharia, or a combination of that and traditional “Councils of elders”.
Compare the number of soldiers that Estonia has sent and lost in US operations with the number Israel has?
That’s probably the best metric of who is an is not an ally.
Who is “they”, 2 million people living in Gaza under an authoritarian unelected regime yet somehow you managed to collect strong data on what the people of Gaza want i presume.
How did you manage that? Do tell?
I could not even tell you what Americans want and they have 50 polls a day. Your methods are obviously superior to the rest of us please share your source.
You only have to study the regions history.
Our cultures are not the same our values are not the same.
It is not difficult to figure this out
What we call democracy is a Western concept, it is not compatible with many middle-eastern traditions, which are based on patriarchy and Islamic jurisprudence.
Except Israel, which is a democracy.
Well, I was hoping that anyone who read my last 2 comments would realise I was excluding Israel and talking about the Arab majority in the region.
So…the biggest democracy in the world is where? Actually, “Brown people” part of my family is “Brown” understand one man / one woman one vote, as do people in Malaya, Pakistan, Singapore, Bali , . It is not the location that is the problem.
JIM wrote: “”Who is “they”, 2 million people living in Gaza under an authoritarian unelected regime yet somehow you managed to collect strong data on what the people of Gaza want i presume. How did you manage that? Do tell?”” The problem the Western liberal world refuses to accept is that the issue with Gaza is simply part of a much larger (and growing) multi-facetted one. Where the diktats of faith is been enforced on others who not only have no say, but who are silenced if they object and the irony here is, its got nothing to do with… Read more »
Thanks for your well informed reply Farouk.
Maybe you should read the Palestinian polls made by Palestinians…
Or maybe you just have to listen to what they say about Jews.
So you forgetting all knowledge and weapons intel about Soviet and Russian weapons. Are you really that ignorant about the world?
You even probably have to thank Israel for Cold War not getting hot by Communists at start of 80’s. At least that is what a Czech general said, that the defeat of Syrians in 1981-1982 in air war made the most agressive generals in Soviet army stop pushing for a gamble against central Europe.
Lest we forget, the fledgling IDF conducted a terrorist campaign against British soldiers in Palestine in the late 1940s – no gratitude for the liberation of the concentration camps and creation of a Jewish homeland there! Indeed, the earliest Jewish defence forces were actually created by the British in early WWII: Orde Wingate was one of the founders. In 1982, Margaret Thatcher’s government stopped all British arms exports to Israel during the IDF’s invasion of Lebanon: we actually had some influence in those days. Now we have none, and can merely send this token effort of food aid. I’m not… Read more »
It is significant that you talk about a war between UK and Jews but not the alliance of Israel and UK in Suez and much latter some cooperation in Cold War and after.
Well Margaret Thatcher had the Marxists in Foreign Office and the Business class allied themselves. The result of that brilliant policy is Palestinians being nothing more than a death cult when they could have been a Singapore or Hong Kong
The problem is culture.
The 1956 Suez Crisis proves my point: getting involved in the Middle East is a mug’s game for us. Notice that the EU countries are staying clear of this latest one. Britain had to get involved in re-opening the Suez Canal in that earlier operation, much as we are keeping that important trade route open today. We allied ourselves with a former enemy then because the priority was to achieve that mission. Eight years is a long time in politics, so having Israel as an ally was a better option than having the Egyptians control world trade, particularly since their… Read more »
“The Palestinian ‘Death Cult’ are winning right now” curios definition of winning, on my TV they are having their ass handed to them, and rightly so.
Hamas’ mission was to turn the Arabic and Islamic world against Israel by bringing the destruction of Gaza and the murder of tens of thousands of non-combatants down upon them, using the IDF to do it for them. Everyone knows Israel’s response to attacks upon her territory are heavy-handed, and an atrocity on this scale would bring about a final reckoning with Gaza, or solution to the problem. The rise in anti-Semitism and growing hatred of Israel amongst non- Arabic/Islamic people in the western world is an added bonus, not to mention that Israel’s actions are now being compared to… Read more »
Read what you wrote. You can’t conduct a terrorist campaign against soldiers, especially occupying ones. Terrorism is by definition (these days at least) conducted against civilians. Nor had Britain created a Jewish homeland at the time for which the IDF should be grateful. In fact we never did. We had promised it even before we gave autonomy of nearly 80% of the Palestinian Mandate to the Arabs in 1923 and full independance in 1946 when it became Jordan. We proposed further partition of the remaining land in 1947. Before that we (Neville Chamberlain) effectively opposed our own declaration, working against… Read more »
We can probably credit Orde Wingate’s creation of the Special Night Squads along with the existence of the underground Hagana as the true foundation of the IDF as it later became. Also those Jewish veteran pilots and soldiers who served in the British forces in WWII. The Palestinian Mandate period which we have been discussing has a bad reputation and legacy amongst military historians of the post-WWII British end-of-empire period, along with other operations in Greece, Cyprus and Aden. We came out with more credit from Malaya, Borneo and Kenya in their transition to independence. No-one comes out of Palestine… Read more »
BXXXXXIT – if we held a grudge over everybody that took a shot at the British Army or RN, our list of friends wouldn’t go far past Bolivia and we would be napalming Dublin every wednesday.
The “hell in Gaza” (its hardly Stalingrad) was caused by one bunch of people alone, Hamas………….and their supporter scum in London on a Saturday.
I had no idea gang rape and female mutilation was so popular amongst the left- I have learned something.
Grant Shapps described it as ‘hell,’ not me. At least in Stalingrad the civilians could escape and let the soldiers fight it out amongst themselves. The UK is now the ‘Useful Idiot Nation’ of both Israel and Hamas: being involved at home and abroad, and with no power to affect the conflict from one side or the other. I keep writing and saying that we shouldn’t have touched the place with a bargepole. It’s doing our country no good at all. Responding to the Houthi attacks upon shipping in the Red Sea is another matter: that’s just routine air policing… Read more »
To the moderators on this forum. My comment of a few hours ago appeared for about 5 minutes and the disappeared. Why??
How the title of this article was written with a straight face…
How is it possible to say that the airdrop will not be to supply Hamas?
There are no heroes or villains in this conflict. Everyone involved is doing no more than is asked or expected of them: No great moderating statesmanship from either Tory Boy or Sleepy Joe; the United Nations as impotent as ever; Netanyahu versus whatever raving Islamist ball of hate who hasn’t yet been killed by a drone strike Hamas leader isn’t like Putin Vs Zelensky – the charismatic megalomaniac being stood up to by the plucky underdog; the IDF are taking no risks or displaying any great tactical acumen – they even killed three of their own guys who had escaped… Read more »