Gaza
Reuters
Twelve people drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities said on Tuesday, 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.
Palestinians go into the sea to collect aid airdropped by an airplane, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 25th March, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters
In Washington, the Pentagon said three of the 18 bundles of airdropped aid into Gaza on Monday had parachute malfunctions and fell into the water, but could not confirm if anyone was killed trying to reach the aid.
It was the latest in a string of incidents involving deaths during aid deliveries in the crowded Palestinian enclave where some people are foraging for weeds to eat and baking barely edible bread from animal feed.
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.
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 persists with an air and ground offensive, triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 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.
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 it reaching civilians within the enclave on U.N. agencies, which it says are inefficient.
Distribution of aid inside Gaza has been complicated, particularly in the north, and last month health authorities in Gaza said Israeli troops killed more than 100 people trying to take aid from a convoy.
Palestinians rush towards the beach to collect aid airdropped by an airplane, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 25th March, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters
Israel’s military disputed that account, saying people who had rushed the convoy had been crushed to death by the crowd or aid trucks.
It has 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 accusations, 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 north Gaza by UNRWA, saying people there were facing a “cruel death by famine”.
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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.
Meanwhile. Israeli air strikes killed dozens of Palestinians at both ends of the Gaza Strip overnight on Monday night, hitting the area around Al Shifa hospital in the north and Rafah on the southern edge where more than a million people have sought shelter.
In the north, where intense fighting has raged for more than a week around Al Shifa, members of the Haseera family told Reuters dozens had been killed in a strike that wiped out a family compound near Gaza’s biggest hospital.
A Palestinian man retrieves belongings from the site of Israeli strikes on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 26th March, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Mohammed Salem
“A new massacre against the families of Abu Suhail Abu Haseera, his children and grandchildren, totalling around 30 people,” family member Abu Ali Abu Haseera said in a text message to Reuters.
Reuters journalists were not able to reach the area around Al Shifa, which Israeli forces stormed on 18th March. Israel says it has killed and arrested hundreds of Hamas fighters who were using the hospital as a base. Hamas and medical staff deny fighters were present and say civilians have been rounded up.
In the south, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering in Rafah against the border fence with Egypt, health authorities said 18 people including eight children were killed in a strike on the Abu Nqaira family home.
Blankets and children’s clothes were strewn amid the rubble on Tuesday morning, where relatives picked through the debris to retrieve belongings. Outside, a pillar of reinforced concrete had crushed a burnt-out car. Family members wept over corpses laid out at a nearby hospital morgue.
Israel says it plans a ground offensive into Rafah, where it believes most Hamas fighters are now sheltering. Its closest ally the United States opposes such an assault, arguing it would cause too much harm to civilians who have sought refuge there.
Also in the south, a siege by tanks around two other hospitals in Khan Younis continued for the third day.
Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip after Hamas fighters crossed the border on a rampage on 7th October, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave say at least 32,333 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 74,694 injured in Israel’s offensive, including 107 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours. Thousands more people are feared dead and unrecovered among the ruins.
On Monday, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, after the United States abstained from the vote.
Israel criticised Washington’s decision not to deploy its veto over the measure, which Israel said would not change anything on the ground.
Hamas welcomed the Security Council resolution, saying in a statement that it “affirms readiness to engage in immediate prisoner swaps on both sides”.
– Additional reporting by IDREES ALI in Washington DC, US
