Jordan and Netherlands supply Gaza field hospital by parachute
The Jordanian and Dutch air forces have parachuted supplies to a field hospital in northern Gaza run by Amman’s military.
The Netherlands’ role in the operation, which was announced late on Sunday, “comes in support of Jordanian humanitarian efforts” in the besieged enclave, the official Jordanian news agency Petra reported.
Jordan has two field hospitals in Gaza – Field Hospital 77 in the north and Field Hospital 2 in the south – and has previously supplied them by parachute.
Official photos showed the latest consignment of supplies – similar to previous aid deliveries – being parachuted to Field Hospital 77, using pallets equipped with GPS-guided devices that can steer the package to its landing site.
Any aircraft operating in Gaza’s air space needs Israeli permission.
Amman has been critical of Israel’s operation in Gaza, and has called on the international community to put pressure on the Israeli government to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave and to halt the fighting. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Sunday that Gaza is “facing starvation”.
During talks in Amman, Mr Safadi told French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne that there must be “immediate international action to stop the war and the unprecedented humanitarian disaster” it is producing, Petra reported.
A large proportion of the kingdom’s 10 million population is of Palestinian origin.
These people are mostly descendants of Palestinians who fled when Israel was created in 1948, and when Israel occupied Palestinian territory after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
The Netherlands was among nine western countries to suspend funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) last week over Israeli allegations that 12 of its employees had taken part in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli communities.
The decision received criticism from Jordan’s Foreign Ministry. Rafik Kharfan, head of the ministry’s Palestinian affairs department, called the move “shocking” and said UNRWA funding should “be increased, not stopped” as conditions for Gazans deteriorate further amid the fighting.