‘Aid drop along Gaza beach has led to drownings’
GAZA STRIP (Reuters) – Twelve people have drowned trying to reach aid dropped by a plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities said on Tuesday, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel’s military campaign. The health authorities in Gaza are run by Hamas and are not corroborated by a third party.
Video of the airdrop obtained by Reuters showed crowds of people running towards the beach in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza as crates with parachutes floated down, and then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled onto the sand.
The video showed the apparently lifeless body of a bearded young man being hauled onto the beach, eyes open but unmoving, and another man trying to revive him with chest compressions as somebody said, “It’s over.”
“He swam to get food for his children, and he was martyred,” said a man standing on the beach who did not give his name. “They should deliver aid through the (overland) crossings. Why are they doing this to us?”
Aid agencies say only about a fifth of required supplies are entering Gaza as Israel plows on with an air and ground offensive, triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre attack, that has shattered the enclave, pushing parts of it into famine already. After Hamas broke an existing ceasefire by launching its cross-border attack, in which its fighters killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 253, Israel launched its military offensive to return the hostages and dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities.
The agencies say deliveries by air or sea directly onto Gaza’s Hamas-run beaches are no substitute for increased supplies coming in by land via Israel or Egypt.
A piece of paper retrieved from Monday’s airdrop said in Arabic written over an American flag that the aid was from the United States.
AID DELIVERY CRISIS
UN Secretary-General Antonio
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 says it puts no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and blames problems in reaching civilians within the enclave on UN agencies, which it says are inefficient.
The distribution of aid inside Gaza has been complicated, particularly in the north.
Israel banned UNRWA, the main UN agency working in Gaza, which it accuses of complicity with Hamas, from carrying out aid deliveries to the north, UNRWA’s head said on Sunday.
UNRWA denies it is complicit with Hamas and is awaiting the results of investigations into its handling of the allegations, which have led some donors to pause funding.
The UN humanitarian office urged Israel on Tuesday to revoke an apparent ban on food aid to northern Gaza by UNRWA, saying people there were facing a “cruel death by famine.”
UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma said the reported drownings showed that the best way to deliver aid was by trucks run by aid agencies.
“These tragic reports coming from Gaza are yet another indication that the most efficient, fastest, safest way to reach people with much-needed humanitarian assistance is via road and via the humanitarian organizations, including UNRWA, that are working on the ground,” Touma said.