5 die in Gaza as airdrop aid falls on house
FIVE people are feared to have been killed in Gaza after being struck by a humanitarian airdrop when parachutes failed to deploy. Witnesses said the aid ‘fell down like a rocket’ on the roof of a house, north of the coastal Al-Shati refugee camp, with ten others wounded in the incident. Footage on social media showed packages plummeting to the ground from a transport aircraft. More than 70,000 meals have been delivered to Gaza over the past week by the US military in coordination with Jordan, Egypt and France. A witness said they had followed the aid in the hope of getting ‘a bag of flour’, but ‘the parachute didn’t open and fell down like a rocket on the roof of one of the houses’.
It comes as the US and UK cofirmed yesterday they would be working together to provide aid by sea. President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address this week to announce that American troops would establish a temporary port on the Gaza coast aimed at increasing the flow of aid into the territory.
The move follows concern about the level of aid getting into Gaza over land, with international bodies warning of an impending famine if restrictions continue. But UK foreign secretary David Cameron said the temporary harbour ‘will take months to stand up’, and urged Israel to ‘promise today’ to open its functioning Ashdod Port to where aid could be shipped from Cyprus and driven into Gaza.
■ ISRAEL will be allowed to compete at Eurovision after changing the lyrics and title of its song October Rain to Hurricane, organisers of the contest confirmed yesterday. The original entry by singer Eden Golan was barred after it was decided that it broke rules on political neutrality by alluding to the October 7 Hamas terror attack.