Several killed in Gaza after air-dropped aid packages fall on them
A number of people in Gaza have been killed after airdropped air packages fell on them, according to multiple reports.
Reports suggest that multiple people were killed after parachutes dropping aid into Gaza failed to open.
The Turkish news agency AnadoluĀ said several people had been killed and injured by the deliveries, while Al Jazeera and CNN reported that at least five people were killed.
The aid packages were dropped over al-Shati refugee camp in Northern Gaza, reports say, when the parachutes on some of the packages malfunctioned.
Videos posted online appear to show some of the aid packages moving through the air at a rapid pace, much faster than the rest of the parachutes which are seen above.
It is unclear who dropped those specific packages.
The US, Lebanon and some other countries have been air-dropping aid into Gaza since last week, following reports of severe starvation, malnutrition and dehydration.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned last week that at least 576,000 people in the Gaza Strip ā one quarter of the enclaveās population ā were one step from famine.
But aid officials have said that airdrops are not an efficient means of distributing aid and are a measure of last resort.
Since the war began on 7 October, Israel has barred entry into Gaza of food, water, medicine and other supplies, except for a trickle of aid entering the south from Egypt at the Rafah crossing and Israelās Kerem Shalom crossing.
The United Nations has meanwhile warned it faces āoverwhelming obstaclesā in getting aid into Gaza, as the war between Israel and Hamas continues.
More than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, since the 7 October attacks when militants killed 1,200 people and took several hundred more hostage. Health officials have said more than 70,000 have been injured in the enclave.
