A pallet of humanitarian aid airdropped into Gaza on Friday morning killed five people and injured ten more, according to reports.
Witnesses told the Guardian that the accident happened near the coastal refugee camp al-Shati after a parachute attached to the pallet failed to deploy properly and fell on a group of men, teenagers, and children waiting for aid.
“Then, all of a sudden, the parachute didn’t open and fell down like a rocket on the roof of one of the houses,” witness Mohammed al-Ghoul told the newspaper. “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.”
According to a video obtained by CNN of the malfunction, the pallet can be seen falling at a high speed, with bags coming apart “in a shower of debris, and later seen and heard impacting the ground with audible loud thuds.”
Muhammad Al-Sheikh, Head of Emergency Care Department at Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, said those injured are in serious condition.
The government media office in Gaza called the airdrops “useless” and “flashy propaganda rather than a humanitarian service,” according to Al-Jazeera.
It is not yet clear who the aid was from. Multiple countries, including the U.S., are conducting airdrops of aid in Gaza. According to CBS News, the U.S., Jordan, Egypt, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium dropped aid over Gaza on Friday.
Friday’s accident came a day after President Joe Biden announced the U.S. military would build a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver more aid amid warnings of a coming famine and as the president faces political fallout from Muslim Americans and young progressives at home over the Israel-Hamas War.
The conflict began after Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, launched a terrorist attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 civilians — many of them women, children, and the elderly. Around 200 were kidnapped, with about half of them held hostage. The Israeli military responded with an offensive into Gaza.
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