Jordan and France airdropped food and other supplies to Gaza’s population on Monday, parachuting some aid packages into the sea, a defiant effort that underscored the desperate need in Gaza as aid groups have warned of growing restrictions. to its ability to distribute supplies.
Video footage showed a group of parachutes falling into the sea near Deir al Balah, a city in central Gaza. Men in small boats paddled through choppy waters to retrieve aid, watched by a crowd of hundreds of people struggling to collect the packages once they reached shore.
Alaa Fayad, a veterinary student who filmed footage of the beach scene that he posted online, said the help was no big deal. “It was sad to see people I know well running and crowding to get help that is not enough,” she said.
Three planes from the Royal Jordanian Air Force and one from its French counterpart dropped the supplies, including prepared meals, over several sites, the Jordanian military said in a statement. The French plane dropped more than two tons of food and hygiene supplies, the French Foreign Ministry said.
The amount is just a fraction of what the United Nations says is the need facing Gaza’s more than two million residents. The two tons of aid dropped by the French plane are equivalent to less than a truck full of supplies. It was not immediately clear why at least some of the aid was dumped into the sea.
Aid groups typically airdrop supplies only as a last resort, given the method’s inefficiency and relative cost compared to road deliveries, as well as the risk to people who could be hit by falling to the ground.
Still, France, which participated in an earlier airdrop, said it was stepping up its work with Jordan because the “humanitarian situation in Gaza is absolutely urgent,” according to a statement from the French Foreign Ministry.
“With increasing numbers of civilians in Gaza dying of hunger and disease,” the statement said, there needs to be more avenues for aid delivery, including Israel’s Ashdod port, north of Gaza.
Jordan began airdropping aid in November and has since completed more than a dozen missions, largely to resupply its field hospitals in Gaza. At least one joint airdrop mission was carried out with France in January, and two others delivered aid supplied by the Netherlands and Britain.
In previous airdrops, Jordan said it had coordinated its efforts with Israeli authorities, who have insisted on inspecting all aid entering Gaza. The Israeli military confirmed it had approved the latest airdrops and said it had not advised the French and Jordanians to drop aid into the sea.
Calls for internationally coordinated airdrops have intensified as aid groups simultaneously warn that the hunger crisis in Gaza is reaching a tipping point and that some obstacles to traditional aid distribution have become insurmountable.
Last week, the World Food Program suspended food deliveries to northern Gaza, saying that despite dire needs there, it could not operate safely amid gunfire and the “collapse of civil order” in recent years. days. The WFP and other United Nations aid agencies have repeatedly warned that Israeli authorities are systematically preventing their access to northern Gaza, and have called on the government to ease their restrictions. Israel has denied blocking aid deliveries.
The suspension of WFP deliveries in an area where it is most needed indicates that, despite its many limitations, airdrops may be one of the few viable options left to quickly bring food to northern Gaza, according to Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib , Middle East policy analyst. who grew up in the enclave. Jordan’s airdrops, he said, have set a “critical precedent” for the viability of the approach.
“It is not enough to wish for a ceasefire or simply wish for better Israeli cooperation,” said Fouad Alkhatib. “We need action right now.”
Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Nader Ibrahim contributed with reports.