UPDATE - 5 Palestinians dead as aid parcels dropped by plane fell on them: Gaza civil defense

UPDATES WITH STATEMENT FROM PALESTINIAN CIVIL DEFENSE SERVICE, REVISES HEADLINE, LEDE

By Anadolu Staff

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Five people were killed as aid boxes dropped from a plane fell on them in Gaza City, the Civil Defense Service in the besieged Palestinian enclave said on Friday.

"The aid parcels landed on the people's heads and homes in northwestern Gaza City this afternoon," Mahmoud Basal, spokesman of the civil defense in Gaza, said in a statement.

Earlier, it was reported that several people were killed and injured in the incident.

“A plane dropped a large number of aid boxes, but parachutes of some of them did not open properly, which led to their rapid fall on gatherings of Palestinians waiting for aid,” a witness told Anadolu.

The witness said that the boxes fell north of the al-Shati Camp and on Al-Jalaa Street, north of Gaza City.

Medical sources said that the wounded were transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital and the Baptist Hospital.

For more than a week, Arab countries, namely, Egypt, the Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, the Sultanate of Oman, and Bahrain have continued to carry out joint operations to drop food aid on the Gaza Strip, in addition to similar operations carried out by the US.

Israel has launched a retaliatory offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. The offensive has killed more than 30,800 victims and injured nearly 73,000 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Palestinian enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced by the Israeli onslaught amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

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

* Writing by Ahmed Asmar and Ikram Kouachi in Ankara