Canada air-drops 21,600 pounds of humanitarian aid in Gaza News
Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Canada air-drops 21,600 pounds of humanitarian aid in Gaza

Global Affairs Canada (GAC) released a statement on Monday confirming that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have provided “life-saving humanitarian assistance” in Gaza amidst the “pressing humanitarian needs of Palestinians.”

CAF relied on CC-130J Hercules aircraft to drop 21,600 pounds of aid to Gaza. In the statement, GAC accused the Israeli government’s restrictions on aid of being a “violation of international humanitarian law” and called for an “end immediately.” GAC also affirmed Canada’s role in working with international partners and delivering humanitarian aid:

Canada is taking these exceptional measures with our international partners as access to humanitarian aid in Gaza is severely restricted and humanitarian needs have reached an unprecedented level. Despite the scale of need, humanitarian partners face severe challenges in delivering life-saving food and medical assistance by land due to ongoing restrictions imposed by the Israeli government. This obstruction of aid is a violation of international humanitarian law and must end immediately. 

The Belgian Defence also delivered humanitarian assistance to Gaza by airdrop on Sunday, providing Palestinians with 30,000 pounds of aid. The Belgian army wrote on X: “A Belgian #A400M carried out its 1st airdrop over #Gaza today, delivering 15 tons of humanitarian aid. The 1st in a series of planned drops as part of Cerulean Skies 2, the Belgian humanitarian mission led by #Jordan to provide essential supplies to Gaza.”

Amnesty International, a leading human rights organization, has previously been critical of the effectiveness of airdrops in Gaza, instead calling on states to obey their international law obligations by stopping “all arms transfers that risk being used in international crimes” and taking “meaningful measures to enforce an immediate ceasefire.”

Twenty-five NGOs joined in the statement to urge governments worldwide for more than airdrops:

States cannot hide behind airdrops and efforts to open a maritime corridor to create the illusion that they are doing enough to support the needs in Gaza: their primary responsibility is to prevent atrocity crimes from unfolding and apply effective political pressure to end the relentless bombardment and the restrictions which prevent the safe delivery of humanitarian aid.

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shared that he plans to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state at the anticipated UN General Assembly in early September, so long as the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agrees to certain conditions. One of the conditions included demilitarizing the Palestinian state.

Nearly 20,000 Canadians signed a petition between late June to late July urging the Government of Canada to “support the delivery of humanitarian aid” and “urgently deploy peacekeeping forces to Gaza for the protection of civilians.”

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