Middle East
Dropped Gaza aid shipment kills five people
A plane drops humanitarian aid over the northern Gaza Strip. photo
© Leo Correa/AP/dpa
Due to the catastrophic supply situation in the Gaza Strip, food aid deliveries are now being dropped from the air. A tragic accident occurred.
Delivering aid from the air to the starving people There was a tragic accident in the Gaza Strip on Friday. Five people were killed by a load falling from the sky because the parachute did not open properly, as the Ministry of Health, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas, confirmed at the request of a dpa employee on site.
Videos on social media showed how the large aid package fell to the ground practically unchecked. Several people were also injured. In view of the catastrophic supply situation, the USA and other nations have begun to parachute aid deliveries of food, especially in the north of the contested coastal strip.
USA: Our aid packages landed safely on the ground
A spokesman for the US Department of Defense said in Washington on Friday that press reports that the US military’s airdrops had resulted in civilian casualties on the ground were false. “We have confirmed that all of our aid packages landed safely on the ground,” he emphasized. The responsible regional command of the US military confirmed in a statement on Saturday night that the deaths were not due to US air drops.
Jordan also distanced itself from the incident on Friday. The state news agency reported, citing unnamed sources, that the technical error did not occur on any of the Jordanian aircraft involved.
The USA only began supplying the civilian population by air last weekend. According to the Pentagon, on Friday US forces brought food into the Gaza Strip this way for the fourth time. American Air Force transport planes dropped 11,500 meals over the crisis area, the spokesman said. In total, the USA has so far provided more than 124,000 meals from the air.