Video from Al Jazeera shows Palestinians rushing to an airdrop in northern Gaza and then fighting each other to retrieve the food.
Later on we see aid that dropped into the sea, while scores of Gazans wade into the waves to retrieve the waterlogged cardboard boxes. One of the drowning victims is seen.
One of the people interviewed complains that the airdrops are barbaric as the strong people grab all the aid from the weak. He says this while holding US-made MREs. It is unclear whether they came from the sea or the boxes that landed on dry land.
Also, at least one person was crushed to death in a stampede to retrieve the airdropped aid.
Yesterday's airdrops came from planes from Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, Germany, Singapore, the United States and Britain, Which air force dropped aid into the sea leading to the drownings? No one seems to care too much.
At least 13 Gazans have died so far while trying to retrieve aid from airdrops.
The whole airdrop idea is a debacle. It is meant to make the world feel good that they are doing something, and if some Gazans die while the world is trying to engage in virtue signaling, well, those are the breaks.
No one in the world seems to even question whether the costs in lives of dropping aid are too high a price to pay for sending small amounts of food that will be stolen by the strong and then sold at astronomical prices, or taken by Hamas members. Unlike the five reportedly killed earlier this month when the parachutes didn't open properly, these deaths have not even been reported in Western media.There is no apology for these deaths. There are no calls for investigations as to which air force is responsible for dropping aid into the sea - which has happened multiple times. No one is following up to figure out who is responsible for the previous parachute mishap.
No one wants to know why Gazans are being killed while trying to get international aid and to ensure it doesn't happen again.
Similarly, no one is talking about how aid can be distributed to those who need it rather than those with guns and bigger muscles. The Gaza black market, the thieves and bandits, the Hamas thugs who shoot anyone trying to get aid, the "official" distribution of aid stolen by Hamas while people wait on line only to be told there is none left - all of these issues are swept under the rug.
The world claims to care about Gazan lives, but that concern ends when Israel cannot be blamed.
And the scores or even hundreds of people killed while trying to get aid are, in the end, added to the Gaza death toll as if Israel killed them.
UPDATE: Reports from Gaza say 12 drowned and 8 died in stampedes.
