Aid package to Gaza kills five people due to the undeployed parachute

Five people have been killed and 10 wounded in Gaza when a parachute on a humanitarian airdrop package failed to deploy properly and the parcel fell on them, a witness has said.

The casualties were taken to Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, the emergency room’s head nurse, Mohammed al-Sheikh, said. The airdrop took place north of the coastal Al-Shati refugee camp, he added.

A witness from the camp said he and his brother had 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,” he said.

The US and Jordan are among the countries to have carried out airdrops in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people are facing dire conditions after more than five months of war.

Referring to the five people killed on Friday, the government media office in Hamas-run Gaza said airdrops were “futile” and “not the best way for aid to enter.”

The UN has said airdrops or a proposed maritime aid corridor cannot be a substitute for land deliveries, urging more trucks to be permitted to reach Gaza through more border crossings.