Twelve people drowned trying to get to aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities have said, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel’s military campaign.
Video of the airdrop on Monday showed crowds of people running towards the beach, in Beit Lahiya in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled on to the sand.
In Washington, the Pentagon said three of the 18 bundles of airdropped aid into Gaza on Monday had parachute malfunctions and fell into the water, but could not confirm if anyone was killed trying to reach the aid.
Twelve people drowned trying to get to aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities have said, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel’s military campaign.
It was the latest in a string of incidents involving deaths during aid deliveries in the crowded Palestinian territory where some people are foraging for weeds to eat and baking barely edible bread from animal feed.
Aid agencies said only about a fifth of required supplies are entering Gaza as Israel persists with an air and ground offensive, triggered by Hamas’s 7 October attack, which has shattered the territory, pushing parts of it into famine.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has urged Israel to give an “ironclad commitment” for unfettered aid access into the Gaza Strip and described the number of trucks blocked at the border as “a moral outrage”.
Israel said it puts no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and blames problems in it reaching civilians within the territory on UN agencies, which it said are inefficient.
The UN humanitarian office urged Israel on Tuesday to revoke an apparent ban on food aid to north Gaza by Unrwa, saying people there were facing a “cruel death by famine”.
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