A parcel of humanitarian aid was incorrectly dropped on Gaza City, leaving five people dead and ten injured. Its source has not yet been identified.
INTERNATIONAL – At least five people were killed and ten injured when a humanitarian aid parcel was dropped on Gaza City on Friday, March 8. According to witness statements gathered on the spot by AFP and images broadcast by the American channel CNN, a package hurtled towards the ground in free fall, without a parachute, before its contents came crashing down with a thud, causing this serious accident.
“When the planes started dropping the cargo, me and my brother went to the area in the hope of recovering a bag of flour”, said Mohammed al-Ghoul, a 50-year-old man living in the camp near the sea. “But the parachute didn’t open and the cargo fell like a rocket onto the roof of one of the houses,” he explained, reporting that he then saw people carrying three bodies and saw wounded among the people who had gathered on the roof of the building to try to retrieve help.
The victims were treated at Gaza’s al-Chifa hospital, Mohammed al-Chiekh, head nurse in the hospital’s emergency department, told AFP. He went on to say that the accident had taken place in the al-Chati refugee camp, west of Gaza City.
For several days now, the United States and other countries such as Jordan and France have been airdropping food aid into the Gaza Strip, which is besieged by Israel and facing a major humanitarian crisis and the threat of famine, according to the UN. The origin of the parcel which caused the serious accident remains unknown for the moment.