Gaza: Five killed in aid drop

Another tragedy in an enclave cut off from the world. Five people were killed and ten injured Friday when aid packages dropped from planes hit Gaza City, a hospital source said.

The victims were treated at Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, said Mohammed al-Shikh, head nurse at the facility’s emergency department, adding that the accident occurred in the Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.

“When the planes started dropping cargo, my brother and I went to the area hoping to get a bag of flour,” said Mohammed al-Ghul, a 50-year-old man living in the camp, located near the sea.

“But the parachute did not open, and the cargo fell like a rocket onto the roof of one of the houses,” he explained, pointing out that he then saw people carrying three bodies and saw wounded people among the people gathered on the roof of the house. building to try to get help.

“Tragedy added to tragedy”

“This is a tragedy that compounds the tragedy that Palestinians have endured in the Gaza Strip,” lamented Mahmoud Basal, a civil defense official in Gaza, adding that among the 10 people injured, some “were seriously injured.”

For days, the United States and other countries such as Jordan and France have been airlifting food aid to the Gaza Strip, which is besieged by Israel, in the grip of a major humanitarian crisis and at risk of famine, according to the United Nations. UN. A Jordanian military source told AFP that Jordan carried out a four-plane humanitarian landing in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday but did not record any incidents.

“The cargo whose parachute did not open and fell in free fall during the landing in the Gaza Strip on Friday did not come from a Jordanian plane,” the source assured. Four Jordanian aircraft, flying this mission in cooperation with five other countries, completed their mission without incident. »

After five months of devastating war sparked by Hamas’s bloody Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Israeli strikes on Gaza have brought no respite, killing at least 78 people in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 30,878. in Gaza since the start of the conflict, according to the authorities of the Islamist movement.

Serious shortages of food and drinking water

The United States is putting increasing pressure on Israel, its ally, which has been besieging Gaza since October 9 and allowing aid trucks only from Egypt. Along with the European Union, Washington announced on Friday the impending opening of a sea corridor between Cyprus and the Gaza Strip to transport humanitarian aid to the famine-stricken Palestinian territory.

The announcement followed US President Joe Biden’s announcement on Thursday of a major humanitarian operation at sea, US officials said, including the construction of a “temporary pier” in the Gaza Strip to provide “massive aid”.

According to the UN, of the 2.4 million inhabitants of the cramped area, 2.2 million are at risk of famine due to severe shortages of food and drinking water, and 1.7 have been forced to flee their homes as a result of fighting and violence. Israeli strikes led to colossal destruction.