Two more Palestinians were killed by airdrops of aid in Gaza this week when a parachute failed, and a pallet smashed into a warehouse, prompting the head of Gaza’s Government Media Office to renew his call for an end to the practice.
Several countries, including the US, Jordan, and the UK, have been dropping pallets of aid on Gaza as Israel is restricting humanitarian assistance through border crossings.
According to Gaza’s Media Office, at least 21 Palestinians have been killed during aid drops, including 12 who drowned while trying to retrieve aid that went into the sea, eight who were killed by falling pallets or stampedes, and one who was shot by Israeli forces.
Last month, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who survived an Israeli airstrike in November was killed by an aid drop.
“We reiterate that airdrops pose a real danger to the lives of citizens and do not provide a real solution to alleviate the food crisis plaguing northern Gaza,” said Salama Marouf, the head of the Media Office. “We call for an immediate halt to the delivery of aid in this ineffective and erroneous manner, and we call for the full activation of the land crossings to deliver humanitarian aid to northern Gaza.”
The US began aid drops over Gaza and built a $320 million pier off the coast instead of pressuring Israel to allow more deliveries to enter border crossings, a far more efficient way to get assistance to starving Palestinians. The first aid shipment bound for the US-built pier has left Cyprus, but it’s unclear when the deliveries will actually reach Gaza.
