A humanitarian airdrop in the northern part of the Palestinian territory killed five people and wounded ten, according to a medical staff member at Gaza’s biggest hospital on Friday.
The head nurse of the emergency room, Mohammed al-Sheikh, told AFP that the victims were brought to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
According to Sheikh, the fatal airdrop happened north of the Al-Shati refugee camp along the coast.
A witness from the camp told the news agency AFP he and his brother followed the parachuted aid in the hope of getting “a bag of flour”.
“Then, all of a sudden, the parachute didn’t open and fell down like a rocket on the roof of one of the houses,” said Mohammed al-Ghoul.
“Ten minutes later I saw people transferring three martyrs and others injured, who were staying on the roof of the house where the aid packages fell,” the 50-year-old told AFP.
Among the nations that have conducted airdrops in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are living in appalling conditions following over five months of conflict, are the United States and Jordan.
A Jordanian military source told AFP that the kingdom was not involved in Friday’s fatal drop.
“The technical defect that caused some parachutes carrying aid not to open and to fall freely to the ground during the airdrop on Gaza on Friday was not from a Jordanian aircraft,” the source said.
“The four Jordanian aircraft that carried out the airdrop in partnership with five other countries carried out its mission without any glitches.”
In reference to the five people who died on Friday, the official media office in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, declared that airdrops were “futile” and “not the best way for aid to enter.”
The UN is pleading for more trucks to be allowed to enter Gaza through more border crossings, stating that airdrops or a potential marine assistance corridor cannot replace ground supplies.
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