https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/08/middleeast/gaza-airdropped-aid-deaths-intl/index.html
t least five people were killed, and 10 others injured on Friday, when aid packages air dropped from the sky fell on them in the Al Shati camp west of Gaza City, according to a journalist on the scene who witnessed the incident.
I'm struggling to think of something flippant and cutting enough to capture the irony while also doing justice to and being respectful of the dead and wounded.
"Supplies, motherfucker!"
Clonk.
(I am certain this does not in fact meet your second criteria.)
The very idea of this happening is so ridiculous that I almost don't believe it. It's like some Looney Toons shit.
I suppose dropping humanitarian aid is kind of like dropping bombs without the boomy bits, so I can definitely believe it. The bigger issue is that the only effective way to get aid in is air dropping. If a certain country would be a little more sensible, the logistics could be easier.
I've been trying very hard not to think about the "sonic got killed by an extra life box" bit and be more serious about this
Aren't airdrops parachuted in? I'm not trying to be a dick, but people didn't have time to move out of the way?
The chutes didn't open. There's video. Having a heavy pallet crash through your roof can cause death. We're talking maybe half the weight of a car, traveling at faster than freeway speed.
Even the ones where the chutes deployed have to be still carrying a decent amount of energy given the speed they appeared to be dropping in the video I saw. Given the number of folks running to try to get to them I'm surprised MORE weren't injured.
So, an update seems to indicate that the parachute failed. So...I was just a dick since I didn't consider that possibility.
In a video obtained by CNN on Friday, an airdrop goes wrong when the parachute on a pallet malfunctions. The pallet and its contents can be seen falling at a high speed towards a residential building near the Fairoz Towers in western Gaza.
If it's what I imagine to be massive pallets of equipment, people could wrongly be under the impression that these drops will float down like feathers when in reality they're like a low-speed automobile collision. So as they approach the ground their speed and drift may catch some off-guard.
Additionally as the article points out, some drops have broken apart or their parachutes do not deploy.
A journalist based in northern Gaza told CNN that Palestinians in northern Gaza are struggling to make use of aid recently air dropped by the US and Jordan, because it does not include essential food supplies.
Abdel Qader Al Sabbah told CNN that the air drops of aid are “useless” calling for items that can be stored and used over several days rather than single portions to be eaten on the day.
Well done as usual, America.
Golf clap.
Maybe the U.S. should stop "helping" Palestinians. And also stop helping Israel.
Humanitarian Daily Rations are best for scenarios like when displaced people are en route, or transient camps without cooking infrastructure built yet.
Flour, rice, lentils, beans, etc is cheaper both up front and a per-meal basis, but doesn’t offer a bonus payout to US military industrial suppliers. The same companies that make the MREs the military eats in the field, also made the HDRs being airdropped right now.
It’s a paltry effort in face of the mammoth need, but I’d rather see this, than the world walking away. Because enforcing the ICJ judgement or stopping a preventable famine apparently isn’t allowed, but “we tried” I guess?
We’ve already seen deaths from starvation and Palestinians who look like the “living skeletons” we liberated from Auschwitz or Buchenwald. I’m behind any effort to try and stop that, however ineffective it is, as long as the efforts continue to stop the death
Help is a relative word.
If I ask for your help in fixing my computer and you show with slegehammer, you're not really helping then, are you?
Its more like someone showing up with a screwdriver, which is generally the correct tool to help fix a computer, but it's too small and sometimes they slip while using it and damage the motherboard in the process.
Not great, but if you literally had no other option for computer help, it's still something.
Its more like someone showing up with a screwdriver
Not really tho because most computer issues are software-based ... so a screwdriver is just as useless as a sledgehammer.
The best thing to do is ask what help is needed vs assuming you know what to do and only providing the aid you want to give.
Well now we are just splitting hairs into worse and worse hairs.
Turns out computer repair, much like the humanitarian aid we are actually talking about, is indeed a complex and difficult thing to get right.
It's almost like the attempt to help should get some credit, especially as the person who brought a sledgehammer or a screwdriver learns that you need software support and adjusts that help accordingly.
When a population is starving, I fail to see how single portion containers isn't helping.
It is food. If it's more food than you can eat before it parishes, share it with others around you.
Yeah, it's not great that the chutes failed and we basically catapulted "aid" at a residential building, but there are unavoidable risks when you're forced to air drop anything.
This is more condemning good in the name of perfect.
If you want to point fingers, point them at Isreal for not allowing aid to be driven in.
And no, I don't need more finger pointing about US aid to Isreal.
Because clearly allowing millions of people to starve is preferable to taking the action that we can, which isn't foolproof.
You do realize that Isreal has killed aid caravans as well, right? That the 5 person death count from this, while absolutely tragic, is still in all likelihood demonstratively safer than the alternatives?
No, you prefer more "perfect is the enemy of good" arguments? Enjoy living in your hypothetical world where nothing ever gets done because it's not a perfect solution without any drawbacks.
My comment here is largely just a vent about one of my favorite quotes which may have just been a typo in your comment or may have been misunderstood.
It seems this person is making the argument “good is the enemy of perfect,” not “perfect is the enemy of good.” The latter is the point you’re making, and one I’m pretty passionate about (I printed it and put it on the wall in my office years ago!). I’m a perfectionist who wants to get things done, and by reminding myself that good is something and perfect is impossible, I get a lot more done.
I once had a VP who told us on his first day “good is the enemy of perfect” was one of his driving values, and I knew that day we were going to have issues. Sure enough, he was a micromanager who didn’t trust anyone else to make decisions. Despite being a VP of 60+ people, he’d change work by individual contributors 2+ layers down from him when he didn’t like something. “Perfection” was defined only by him and nothing anyone else did was good enough. Reporting up through him for a year was miserable and three years later we’re still cleaning up problems his ego caused.
So yeah, I agree with you. I’m glad we did an airdrop. Was it enough or an end all? No. Is what happened with it a tragedy? Absolutely. But I’m glad we’ve done something (the good) AND I will push for more, rather than demonize the good because it wasn’t perfect.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply, and I agree 100%! I think that's experience talking, and perhaps why we have so much friction here on Lemmy, where there's a very progressive trend.
We all want the same thing, but there's a huge divide between those of us that accept that change is slow and iterative, and those that require a perfect world and will try to burn down anything that isn't fast or complete enough.
Not sure why did you rewrite this comment again. As the Palestinians say this is just a theater. "We are definitely not funding a genocide. A ceasefire deal will happen any day now"
How predictable. It's almost like I already knew what you were going to say when you had zero ground to stand on for demonizing this particular event.
And no, I don’t need more finger pointing about US aid to Isreal.
Oh wait, I totally did.
lol what do you expect? I am not allowed to talk about the actual involvement of the USA in the war because you said so. and the Palestinians opinion is irrelevant because you know better.
