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Key Points
- Gaza health authorities say at least 12 people have drowned trying to access aid.
- Aid agencies say only about a fifth of required supplies are entering Gaza.
- UNRWA said the reported drownings showed the best way to deliver aid was by trucks run by aid agencies.
Twelve people have drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, according to Palestinian health authorities, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel’s military campaign.
Video of the airdrop obtained by Reuters showed crowds of people running towards the beach, in Beit Lahia in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled onto the sand.
It is the latest in a string of incidents involving deaths during aid deliveries in the tiny, crowded Palestinian enclave where some people are foraging for weeds to eat and baking barely edible bread from animal feed.
The video showed the apparently lifeless body of a bearded young man being hauled onto the beach, the 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 ploughs on with an air and ground offensive, triggered by Hamas’ 7 October attack, that has shattered the enclave, pushing parts of it into famine already.
They say deliveries by air or sea directly onto Hamas-run Gaza’s beaches are no substitute for increased supplies coming in by land via Israel or Egypt.
A piece of paper retrieved from Monday’s air drop said in Arabic written over an American flag that the aid was from the United States.
UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma said the reported drownings showed 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 organisations including UNRWA who are working on the ground,” Touma said.
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