Younis Tirawi reports that five Palestinians, including two children, were killed and others wounded near Al-Shati refugee camp northwest of Gaza City, when parachutes on airdropped aid crates failed to open. The incident happened at 10:30am in the morning of Friday 8 March 2024 during an airdrop by the United States.
Twitter user @Hakeam_ps (“Al-Hakeem” means “The Wise Man”) posted video of the deadly incident.
Al-Hakeam noted that parachutes and crates were “noticeably falling very quickly, which was strange, and for the first time and in a way different from before.”
All of the crates were noted to be dropping faster than in previous airdrops, perhaps a result of overloading.
Another video also shows some crates falling faster than others with their parachutes not fully opened.
Palestinian journalist and Al-Jazeera correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul posted another angle of the deadly airdrop on his Telegram channel. After running out of the path of the dropping aid, he captures footage of one crate dropping very fast with a partially opened parachute but, as noted by Al-Hakeam, all of the aid is dropping very fast, which apparently is a new phenomenon.
One Twitter user commented sarcastically under one of the videos, “Cause of death, Rafah Crossing”, a reference to the fact that Israel has refused to open the land borders for the adequate supply of aid.
CBS reports that the US airdrop resulted in another 11 Palestinians were injured. The time they give for the airdrop (11:30am local time) appears to be one hour later than that given by Al-Hakeam.
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