The UK May Join Aid Drops in Gaza as Keir Starmer Calls for Action
Britain will “pull every lever” to help relief efforts in Gaza as demand to recognize the country grows, according to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has hinted that the UK may soon join international efforts to airdrop humanitarian goods into Gaza, as over 220 Members of Parliament from nine different political parties demand that the government legally recognize a Palestinian state.
Sir Keir praised Israel’s decision to let foreign nations to start air deliveries of goods into Gaza in a Friday article in The Mirror, calling the action “far too late” but reaffirming that the UK would take action. He declared, “We will make every effort to get aid in through this route.”
Additionally, according to the Labour leader, the UK is “urgently accelerating efforts” to transport critically ill children from Gaza so they can receive care in the United Kingdom. Later on X, formerly Twitter, he tweeted, “This humanitarian catastrophe must end,” and pledged that the administration will “pull every lever” to guarantee that Palestinians in dire need of life-saving assistance receive it.
This development coincides with growing calls on a global scale for a political solution to the crisis. France promised on Friday to recognize Palestinian statehood within months, a move that many in Westminster now believe the UK should follow.
In a cross-party letter, more than one-third of MPs, more than half of whom were Labour, called for the immediate recognition of a Palestinian state. The initiative was coordinated by Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham and leader of the international development select committee. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that “the clock is really ticking.”
She cautioned, “We really need to do it while there is possible that there will be a state of Palestine… and that is not going to be there for much longer.”
However, citing the Hamas attacks on October 7, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar denounced the initiative as a “prize for terror.”
In addition, Champion warned that airdrops were “mainly symbolic,” citing instances of “grotesque hunger games” in Gaza where residents fought for scarce parachuted cargo. In order to allow aid to stream in, Israel must decide to open all of its borders. “There is no other way to prevent this artificial famine,” she stated.
Airdrops have also been criticized by the UN and humanitarian organizations as an ineffective substitute for land access, calling the new choice a “distraction to inaction.” Nearly one in three Gaza residents go days without eating, according to the World Food Programme, and over 90,000 women and children in the region urgently need treatment for malnutrition.
Over 100 tonnes of supplies were delivered into northern Gaza by the Royal Air Force and Jordanian Air Force in early 2024. Although Jordan and the UAE would commence dropping in the next few days, according to Israeli media, Jordanian authorities informed the BBC they had not yet received Israeli approval.
With help from the humanitarian organization Project Pure Hope, just two Gazan children have been sent to the UK for medical treatment since the start of the conflict. They arrived in May.
A “wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution” is required for any recognition of a Palestinian state, according to Sir Keir. He reaffirmed this position after holding emergency meetings with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.
