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Five People in Gaza Killed by Airdrop Package That Failed to Deploy

© AFP Palestinians running toward parachutes attached to food parcels, airdropped from US aircrafts on a beach in the Gaza Strip on March 2, 2024.
 Palestinians running toward parachutes attached to food parcels, airdropped from US aircrafts on a beach in the Gaza Strip on March 2, 2024. - Sputnik International, 1920, 09.03.2024
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Adding insult to injury, the pallet of supplies reportedly killed five people in Gaza after a parachute attached to the package failed to deploy. The victims were waiting for food and other supplies when they were killed.
Five more people in Gaza were killed on Friday after a US aid airdrop package failed to deploy its parachute and the parcel fell on them. The victims were in the Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza at the time, according to officials from Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
The victims include two boys among the five who were killed and 11 others who were injured, a report on Friday said. The incident occurred at around 11:30 AM local time. A witness from the camp said he and his brother had followed the parachuted aid in hopes of getting a “bag of flour”, cites a separate report.
“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 the witness. “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.”
A video posted to social media shows airdrop packages being dropped without functioning parachutes, but it is not clear when the video was taken.
The US, Jordan, Egypt, France, the Netherlands and Belgium dropped aid into Gaza on Friday, but thus far no government has taken responsibility for the failed airdrop. Both the US and Jordan have openly denied responsibility for the fatalities.
“We are aware of reports of civilians killed as a result of humanitarian airdrops. We express sympathies to the families of those who were killed. Contrary to some reports, this was not the result of U.S. airdrops,” US central command said in a post on X on Friday.
The government media office in Gaza lambasted the “useless” airdrops as “flashy propaganda rather than a humanitarian service”.
“We previously warned it poses a threat to the lives of citizens in the Gaza Strip and this is what happened today when the parcels fell on the citizens’ heads,” it said in a statement.
Palestinians who have been displaced by the war between Hamas and Israel have struggled to access food, water and medicine. When they wait for packages of food, they are either targeted by the Israeli military or killed by a non-functional parachute, a Qatari news channel reported.
Last month, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that at least half a million—or one in four people—in Gaza now face famine. UNRWA says Israeli authorities have not allowed the UN agency to deliver supplies to the north of the strip since January 23. The World Food Programme also said the military forced its first convoy to turn back. They have since paused their deliveries.
Around 31,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, the Health Ministry said.
US President Joe Biden departs after delivering his State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 7, 2024. - Sputnik International, 1920, 09.03.2024
Analysis
Is Biden’s Idea to Establish Port in Gaza What It Seems?
On Thursday, President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that the US will build a temporary port in Gaza. More than 1,000 US military personnel will be deployed to work on the offshore floating pier which will receive commercial vessels with aid. That aid will be offloaded onto the floating pier and then transloaded on Navy support vessels. The vessels will then take it to the floating causeway, which is about 1,800 feet (500 meters) long, and then it will be transported onto land.
Biden has maintained that no American boots will be on Gaza’s ground.
Biden’s administration has continued to support Israel in the war, and has sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel. The US has also made “quite” sales as well, the total value of which is unknown. Despite half-baked calls from the administration for Israel to spare civilian lives, the US has continued to restock their supply of weapons, helping to create one of the most intense bombing campaigns in military history.
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