Five killed as parachute fails to open during aid drop in Gaza
An international effort gathered pace Friday to get desperately needed humanitarian relief into Gaza by sea, in the latest bid to counter overland access restrictions blamed on Israel as it battles Hamas militants.
The dire conditions more than five months into the war have led some countries to airdrop food and other assistance over the besieged Gaza Strip, but a parachute malfunction turned the latest operation lethal. Five Palestinians were killed and 10 wounded north of the coastal Al-Shati refugee camp, said Mohammed al-Sheikh, emergency room head nurse at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital.
A witness told 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,” hitting a house, said Mohammed al-Ghoul. Both Jordan’s military and a US defence official denied that aircraft from either country caused the fatalities.
The airdrop was also carried out in partnership with Belgium, Egypt, France and the Netherlands.
In the Cypriot port of Larnaca, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen expressed hope a maritime corridor could open this Sunday, though crucial details of the planned operation remained unclear. She said “an initial pilot operation” would be launched on Friday, and the United Arab Emirates had helped activate the corridor “by securing the first of many shipments of goods to the people of Gaza”.