Video of an air drop in the Gaza Strip this week appeared to show aid packages suffering a parachute malfunction, which local reports claim resulted in the deaths of several individuals.
Initial reports, citing sources in the Gaza Strip, claimed that the air drop came from a U.S. cargo plane, but the Pentagon told Fox News Digital that “Reports of injuries in Gaza from a U.S. airdropped aid box are false.”
“We have no additional information to provide on this,” the spokesperson added when pressed for more details, but CENTCOM later wrote in a post on social media platform X that officials “are aware of reports of civilians killed as a result of humanitarian airdrops.”
“We express sympathies to the families of those who were killed,” the message said, once more stressing that “contrary to some reports,” the incident did not occur as a result of U.S. airdrops.
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Video on social media appears to show an air drop on the al-Shati refugee camp, with several packages dropping without parachutes. Reports claim that five people died, and 10 others were injured due to the malfunction, with one witness in the camp saying the packages “fell down like a rocket on the roof of one of the houses.”
A plane drops humanitarian aid around to Al-Shati refugee camp and Jamal Abdel Nasser Street in Gaza City, Gaza on March 9, 2024. (Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Ten minutes later, I saw people transferring three martyrs and others injured, who were staying on the roof of the house where ethe aid packages fell,” Mohammed al-Ghoul, 50, told the Agence France-Press (AFP).
The U.S. earlier this week initiated a series of air drops to deliver tens of thousands of meals along the Gaza coastline, working with the Royal Jordanian Air Force to complete the operation, CENTCOM said in a statement released Wednesday.
“The DoD humanitarian airdrops contribute to ongoing U.S. and partner-nation government efforts to alleviate human suffering,” the statement read. “These airdrops are part of a sustained effort, and we continue to plan follow on aerial deliveries.”
U.S. Central Command and the Royal Jordanian Air Force conduct a combined humanitarian assistance airdrop to Northern Gaza to provide essential relief to civilians affected by the ongoing Israeli attacks on March 7, 2024, in Northern Gaza. The combined, joint operation included US Air Force C-130 aircraft and U.S. Army Soldiers specialized in aerial delivery of U.S. and Jordanian humanitarian assistance supplies. (U.S Central Command/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Wednesday drop delivered 38,000 meals, dropped from U.S. C-130s, and subsequent drops on Thursday and Friday delivered 41,000 “meal equivalents” and 23,000 bottles of water and 11,500 “meal equivalents” and “life-saving humanitarian aid,” respectively.
Each airdrop occurred with assistance from the Jordanian air force. Fox News Digital reached out to the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Jordanian Embassy in Washington, D.C., but received no response by the time of publication.
The deceased Palestinians are brought to the morgue at Shifa Hospital after it was reported that there had been deaths and injuries as a result of the parachutes of the humanitarian aid boxes dropped from the air by planes carrying aid to the Gaza Strip not opening and falling on Palestinians waiting for help in the area in Gaza City on March 8, 2024. The deceased Palestinians were transported to the morgue at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where grieving relatives mourned the loss of their loved ones. (Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A Jordanian military source told the AFP that none of the kingdom’s four aircraft that participated in the operation had any involvement with the fatalities.
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“The technical defect that caused some parachutes carrying aid not to open and to fall freely to the ground during the airdrop on Gaza on Friday was not from a Jordanian aircraft,” the source said, noting that five other countries were involved in the operation.
A Palestinian man, who sees his relative dead, his body wrapped in a blanket, mourns on the ground after it was reported that there had been deaths and injuries as a result of the parachutes of the humanitarian aid boxes dropped from the air by planes carrying aid to the Gaza Strip not opening and falling on Palestinians waiting for help in the area in Gaza City on March 8, 2024. The deceased Palestinians were transported to the morgue at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where grieving relatives mourned the loss of their loved ones. (Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Egypt, France, the Netherlands and Belgium have also dropped aid into the Gaza Strip over the past week, according to the BBC.
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The Gaza media office insisted that airdrops were “not the best way for aid to enter” the region, which President Biden appears to have taken to heart as he looks to build a temporary pier for increased aid delivery on the coast.
The United Nations, meanwhile, has argued that land deliveries have proven the most effective means to deliver aid, but passage through the Rafah Crossing remains difficult.