The US will begin air dropping food aid to the people of Gaza, President Joe Biden announced on Friday, as the humanitarian crisis deepens and Israel continues to resist opening additional land crossings to allow more assistance into the war-torn strip.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Biden said the US would be “pulling out every stop” to get additional aid into Gaza, which has been under heavy bombardment by Israel since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

“Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough,” the US President said, noting “hundreds of trucks” should be entering the enclave.

Biden said the US is “going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need, no excuses”.

He also noted the efforts to broker a deal to free the hostages and secure an “immediate ceasefire” that would allow additional aid in.

  • abracaDavid@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Just had to wait for there to be 30,000 Palestinian deaths first.

    9/11 had 2,996 deaths for a little bit of context. Just imagine what would be happening right now if there were 30,000 dead Americans.

    • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      America has 9/11s of covid deaths monthly, long after Biden “ended covid” with Trump’s strategy of “just stop reporting the numbers”. That’s what our journalists also do with all of the people murdered by Israel. Keep them out of sight, out of mind.

      • Urist@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        To be fair, it is medically hard to determine whether elderly people die with covid or from it.

        • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          I’m sure that it is, but it’s not just elderly dying, plenty of kids and their parents are suffering. I just read a NPR puff piece about a landlord who finally got their investment property ‘back’ by evicting their tenant… a recently widowed healthcare worker with a child. It’s almost like we shouldn’t be trying to just return to ‘normal’ with an uncontrolled pandemic raging.

          • nomous@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            As many people die from covid as do from influenza or RSV at this point. I’m not saying it’s not a serious illness but I am saying it’s very far from “an uncontrolled pandemic” and saying it is is hyperbolic to the point of disregarding any other point you made.

            • ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml
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              9 months ago

              As many people die from covid as do from influenza or RSV at this point.

              I understand you don’t feel affected by covid anymore, but you’re incredibly wrong.

              CDC estimates for influenza deaths in the 2022-2023 flu season: 21,000

              CDC cumulative covid deaths from Sep 9, 2023 minus Oct 1, 2022: 84,560

              Honestly, I’m not seeing a death count for RSV, but based on this RSV Burden Estimates, it’s at most: 10,300 per year.

              And this is all shown pretty well in the Trends in Viral Respiratory Deaths in the United States graph.

              • Urist@lemmy.ml
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                9 months ago

                Not denying covid is more deadly than influenza or RSV, but you still have to account for the fact that covid might kill an old person that would otherwise die to influenza in a month or two (or something else, they are old and their bodies are degrading inevitably). That is why sustained increased death rates in corrolation to covid numbers is a better qualifier for the argument that we have to take precautions to limit people dying. I have been of the understanding that after the major initial waves, death rates are not higher than usual and hence unsustained.

                • ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml
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                  9 months ago

                  Even if I ignore you moving the goalposts, would you really look at a graph like this

                  that’s a few years out of date and assume the total deaths settled back down into the old pattern?

                  I’m not finding a more up-to-date data source for deaths per month, but it’s not like you’re providing any kind of data that covid isn’t still killing a lot of extra people per year.

                  • Urist@lemmy.ml
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                    9 months ago

                    I am not from the US, but here are the statistics from Norway where no covid measurements have been in place since the start of 2022. The table below is official statistics on mortality nationwide:

                    Also, I got this first from discussions with some newly graduated medicine students. It is not like I was pulling it from my ass in the first place.

                    If there is any discrepancy in mortality rates, it could very well be caused by different ratios of vaccinated populace:

    • theletterd@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      How many non-Americans died as a result of 9/11? How many in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in the global war on terror? I’m guessing a shit ton more than 30,000.

      It’s only going to increase every day the hostages aren’t returned.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Lol no. Most studies are in the 250,000 to 500,000 range and include deaths because of coalition forces, the civil war (“sectarian violence”), and AQ.

          This is also over a much larger population, time period, and area.

          • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Bunch of children died due to a reduction in quality of diet, healthcare, education. A lot of it was sanction related. Believe it or not, didn’t pull the number out of my arse.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              So you’re using the study that adds in assumed deaths in the ten years before the Iraq war as a misleading figure for the Iraq war. Just so we’re clear that isn’t an apples to apples comparison. Unless you want to put the work in to check those numbers for Gaza since the mid 2000’s when Israel began it’s blockade.

              But that would require acknowledging the last 15 to 20 years of Israeli fuckery. So instead you went and found the biggest possible number to tag the US with as some kind of perverse shield for Israeli war crimes.

        • dumpsterlid@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          What a stunning fucking number, it isn’t just murder on a mass scale, it is the denial of an entire future reality for a country because of the massive empty spaces all that destruction and death cause.

    • index@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      They waited and will wait until the goal is achieved which is destroying gaza and drive as many palestinians away so that israel can extend its state.

      • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        Biden gave material support to Israel’s genocidal campaign which has killed over 30,000 people. You’re delusional if you think paying lip service to a ceasefire while still actively supporting the genocide is going to satisfy anyone.