Why Can’t We Feed Gaza with an Airlift?
✈️ From Bombs to Bread: If We Could feed Berlin with an air lift in the 40’s, Why Can’t We Feed Gaza today?
By Dr. Rob Gillio
Medical Director, Force for Health Network
“If we have the capacity to launch precision weapons halfway across the world…
then surely, we can drop bread and medicine with the same accuracy.” Dr. Rob
As a physician, father, and a human being, I’m watching the crisis in Gaza unfold with a heavy heart. Every headline, every image of starving children, of overwhelmed clinics, of civilians trapped in the rubble — it raises one burning question in my mind:
Where is our Berlin Airlift moment?
(Photo Credits: Both images are taken by me from recent ABC News TV broadcast.)
✈️ A History Lesson in Humanitarian Action
In 1948, the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin, cutting off food, fuel, and supplies to more than 2 million people. In response, the United States — along with Britain and allies — launched the Berlin Airlift, one of the greatest humanitarian logistics efforts in history.
Over 15 months, allied forces flew over 277,000 flights, delivering 2.3 million tons of food, coal, and supplies to a city surrounded by hostility.
They flew in every 30 seconds, sometimes at night, in fog, in danger. They didn’t ask if it was easy — they asked if it was right.
And history answered: yes.
🌍 Gaza: A Crisis of Hunger and Conscience
Now, in 2025, we face a different blockade — but the same moral test. Civilians in Gaza are suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, disease, and trauma. Medical infrastructure has collapsed. Sanitation is failing. Mothers are feeding their children grass and grain scraps to survive.
Yet, in the same breath, we boast of precision weaponry that can take out hardened nuclear facilities thousands of miles away.
We can drop bombs on bunkers with pinpoint accuracy and in stealth mode with no planes lost.
So tell me:
Why can’t we drop bread with the same precision?
🎯 Technology for Destruction, But Not for Compassion?
Let’s be honest — this is not a question of capability. It’s a question of will.
- We have drones that can deliver packages to suburban doorsteps.
- We have cargo planes that can reach the Arctic.
- We have logistics experts who can deploy worldwide in hours.
We can assemble a war machine faster than we can fill a food truck?
If the U.S. could organize thousands of daily flights into Berlin under threat of Soviet guns in the 40’s, then in 2025, surely we can organize targeted air drops of food and aid into Gaza — even in the face of resistance, even if it takes global coordination.
We did it before.
We can do it again.
This time, for children, not geopolitics.
I am not an expert. I only know what I hear on media that is hard to trust with primary sources both claiming the others are the problem. I hope the pictures and stories we are seeing are fake and AI generated because the truth sickens me. Like many, my heritage has relatives slaughtered or ignored in past conflicts, concentration camps, and wars. I often wonder how those in that time let it happen. Many did not know it was happening, but we don’t have that excuse.
This is not just a USA problem but we have the leverage to pressure many in the region to act. Get Israel to allow a fly over or challenge them to use their soldiers to deliver food, not shoot those that are desperate to get it and rush the trucks, warehouses, or distribution sites. Where are the neighboring countries and why haven’t they opened their borders to their neighbors?
🧬 My Work Has Always Been About This
I feel paralyzed, like I originally felt after 911 and Hurricane Katrina. I feel like a family in Europe in the 1930’s and 40’s must have felt when horrible things were happening nearby to others. The current situation and what we see on media and hear from both sides, make it hard to explain why we don’t do more — when we clearly can.
The Force for Health Network that came out of those efforts, teaches health literacy, sustainability, and global compassion. We teach kids and adults that being a Force for Health doesn’t stop at your ZIP code but where you live is one of your vital signs that can predict life expectancy, the the location of Gaza illustrates that. It’s not woke to have empathy. Its human and it should extend to wherever suffering exists. I don’t pretend to understand all the politics and impacts of policies and actions by the parties in the region, but I do understand suffering, hunger, and desperation. I understand that the longer the war, the more money someone makes on arms sales, privatization of services for food distribution, and ultimate control of the land and the people there. After 911 and Katrina, I was part of a solution by volunteers with government, NGO, and medical professionals and we made a difference with no budget, just passion and improvised leadership, supplies, and technology. Our approach and model was “Learn it, Live it, Share it and we acted. Can we Share it now and take action? Thoughts and prayers help us feel better, not them.
I welcome any corporate, NGO, government, or financial leaders to step up with supplies, cash, logistical support or leadership beyond what I can do make help make something happen soon.
🕊️ The World Is Watching
In the end, history won’t ask us how hard it was. It will ask us what we chose to do.
- Did we show the world that our precision could serve peace, not just power?
- Could we make this a great training mission for our military and could justify the cost as we match our might with moral courage and proud to do the American thing? We need to make America great again in a way that elevates our status in the world. Our inaction on this matter hurts us all.
- Did we use our wings to lift people up instead of only striking them down?
Let’s not be remembered for how accurately we can destroy.
Let’s be remembered for how bravely we can deliver hope and support until a solution is reached.
✊ Be a Force for Health.
Be a force for mercy, logic, and life.
It’s not too late for a Berlin Airlift for Gaza — but time is running out.
Share it! Your network of who you know, and the resources you can assemble, may make a difference. If we wait too long, our grandchildren will ask us why we didn’t.
🔁 Share this if you believe we can use our power to heal, not just harm.
📢 #BerlinAirliftForGaza | #ForceForHealth | #FeedNotBomb | #WeAreAllNeighbors
