JAKARTA -- The military is ready to deploy two units of the TNI Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft from Jakarta to Egypt on Saturday (4/11). The two aircraft were carrying humanitarian missions to send aid for Palestinians suffering as a result of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Rear Admiral Julius Widjojono, spokesperson for Indonesian Military Headquarters, confirmed the information and said the two Hercules units deployed were from the 31st Air Squadron and the 32nd Air Squadron of the TNI AU. Beyond that, Julius added, the AU military also prepared two spare Hercules for the humanitarian mission.
“In addition to the two Hercules aircraft units of the TNI AU, one unit of the charter aircraft (Boeing 737 Garuda) was also involved by the police headquarters so that the total support of aircraft for transporting humanitarian aid logistics to Palestine amounted to three aircraft units,” Julius said in an official broadcast from the military headquarters in Jakarta on Thursday (11/2/2023).
The three aircraft units were scheduled to depart from Halim Perdanakusuma Air Base Ops Base in Jakarta on Saturday at 8:30pm. Indonesian President Joko Widodo is scheduled to release the group transporting humanitarian aid. The group of planes from the Republic of Indonesia was scheduled to arrive in Egypt on Monday (6/11/2023).
“The flight routes in this humanitarian mission are Halim (Jakarta) -Aceh-Yangon (Myanmar) -New Delhi (India) -Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) -Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) -El Arish (Egypt). Solid interagency collaboration has made the aid delivery process so far run smoothly,” said the military spokesperson.
For the current process, he continued, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kemenlu) of the Republic of Indonesia filed a diplomatic memorandum, especially for flight clearance, landing permit, and ground handling. He said the Ministry of Defence also helped with financing in some aid delivery processes.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Lalu Muhammad Iqbal at a press conference in Jakarta on Wednesday (1/11), said that the aid would later be delivered to Egypt's Red Crescent, then channeled to Gaza by UNRWA. “This is because only the Egyptian Red Crescent is authorized to bring in aid into Gaza,” Iqbal said.
He added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia is still waiting for approval from the United Nations on aid items that can enter Gaza. So far, the Head of the Public Relations Bureau of the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Indonesia, TNI Brigadier Edwin Adrian Sumantha, said that logistics have been prepared in the form of health tools, sanitation, food, sleeping bags, and winter supplies.
The total amount of aid to be distributed reaches 30 tons collected from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defense, PMI, Baznas, and the Zakat Forum for Palestinians in Gaza.
According to Edwin, 42 aircrew and two military midshipmen from the Ministry of Defence serving as liaison officers will take part in the humanitarian mission. “We included two Ministry of Defence officers as at the time of the implementation of aid delivery to Turkey (for earthquake victims, Red), we included one middle officer as LO,” he said on Thursday.
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