Falling aid pallet kills, injures several Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza

By Mohamed Majid

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Several Palestinians waiting for aid were killed and injured on Friday when an aid pallet airdropped on the northern Gaza Strip fell without its parachutes opening, Gaza's Civil Defense Agency said.

“The falling of an aid pallet from the air directly onto a group of citizens in the northern part of the Strip led to the deaths and injuries of several people,” the agency's spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, said in a statement.

Basal, however, did not specify the number of casualties.

Similar incidents in the past have resulted in the deaths and injuries of a significant number of people in Gaza.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion, which killed around 1,200 people.

Tel Aviv, in comparison, has killed nearly 34,600 Palestinians and wounded 77,700 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities in the Palestinian territory.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement besides a crippling blockade on food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to prevent genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul