Authorities in Gaza said at least five Palestinians were killed and several others injured on Friday after humanitarian aid packages were dropped on them in Gaza City.
The report, released by the government’s media office and the Palestinian civil defense force, could not be immediately verified by independent sources, but if confirmed, the deaths would highlight the dangers and difficulties of relying on airdrops to get food to people facing extreme hunger. in northern Gaza after five months of war.
A video, which is circulating on social media and is said to depict the incident, shows a plane releasing parachutes carrying aid packages in northern Gaza. In the clip, whose date and location were verified by The New York Times, it appears that a parachute failed to open, while several packages not attached to parachutes fell to the ground. In the clip, captured near Al-Shati Camppeople can be seen running in different directions.
The government’s media office said in a statement that the packages fell “on the heads” of some people “as a result of improper landing.” The office added that it had previously warned that a similar incident could occur during airdrops and “pose a threat to the lives” of civilians in Gaza. Noting that some of the aid reached the sea or near Israel’s border, the statement said airdrop operations were “ineffective and not the best way to deliver aid.”
It remains unclear which country dropped the aid packages. Airdrops have been carried out by the United States, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and France in recent weeks in an effort to prevent a larger humanitarian disaster in Gaza. UN officials say the threat of famine looms on the besieged coast, where aid comes in by truck through two border crossings.
UN officials, aid groups and experts on humanitarian crises say the airdrops are insufficient and largely symbolic, given the dire needs of the two million Gazans still trapped in a war zone. . They urged Israel to open more border crossings and speed up inspections of aid shipments.
Airdrops can deliver only a fraction of the food that a convoy of trucks can haul, and it is difficult if not impossible to control who owns the goods once they reach the ground, experts say. this.
But the dangers posed by failed parachutes and falling pallets of food, water and other aid are also major risks in airdrop operations. In its statement, the government’s press office cited the deaths as arguing Israel should open more border crossings to allow more aid trucks to enter.
Saleh Eid, a 60-year-old translator, said in a telephone interview on Friday that he had previously seen packages airdropped in northern Gaza fall “very quickly” when their parachutes failed to open, which creates danger to people’s lives.
Mr. Eid, who lives in the city of Jabaliya north of Gaza City, said many of these packages fell into the sea. Others fell in open areas near the Israeli border, and people risked being shot by Israeli forces to retrieve them, he said.
Mr. Eid said most of the airdropped food ends up being sold on the black market instead of being distributed to the most hungry.
On Sunday, he said, he bought three bags of food at a market that had been airdropped by the United States. He gave the food to his wife, who was breastfeeding their 2-week-old baby, in hopes that he would eat well enough to produce milk.
Each bag, he said, cost him 30 shekels, or about $8 dollars, and contained a small meal and some cookies, jam, peanut butter, a chocolate bar, a juice box, instant coffee and gum
Arijeta Lajka contributed reporting.
