Wednesday, March 27, 2024 – The authorities in Gaza on Tuesday evening, March 26, called for an end to aid being airdropped and encouraged an increase in deliveries by land.
The authorities disclosed that a total of 12
people drowned while trying to retrieve airdropped aid that had fallen into the
Mediterranean.
People waded into the water from a beach in
northern Gaza on Monday afternoon, March 25, to get the aid packages, according
to Ahmed Abu Qamar, a Gaza-based researcher for EuroMed Rights, a human rights
group, who said he had spoken to witnesses.
He also said that around a dozen people had
drowned, saying that at least one had become entangled in a parachute.
it was not clear which country was
responsible for the airdrop in question.
Three of approximately 80 aid bundles
dropped by the United States on Monday “were reported to have had parachute
malfunctions and landed in the water,” a Pentagon spokeswoman, Sabrina Singh,
said at a news conference on Tuesday.
However, she said that she could not
confirm the reports of the drownings.
The aid was intentionally dropped over water
and intended to be carried to land by wind drift, to mitigate potential harm in
the event that the parachutes failed to deploy, Ms. Singh said.
The fatalities were not the first connected
to aid drops. Earlier this month, the authorities in Gaza said that at
least five Palestinians had been killed and several others wounded when
airdropped aid packages fell on them in Gaza City.
On Tuesday, March 26, the Gaza government
media office said that six other people had died during what it characterized
as stampeded trying to get aid that was airdropped in other locations.
The United Nations and other aid
organizations say that trucks, rather than planes, are the cheapest, safest and
most effective means of delivering aid to Gaza, a territory whose population of
more than two million faces a hunger crisis that humanitarian organizations say
borders on famine.
But several governments, including those of the United States, France, Jordan and Egypt, have in recent weeks used airdrops to supplement aid that arrives by land, while also calling on Israel to allow in more trucks.
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