Hamas says 12 drown trying to reach aid dropped in water off Gaza

Twelve people have drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach Monday, Hamas health authorities in Gaza say.

Video of an airdrop obtained by Reuters shows crowds of people running toward a beach in Beit Lahiya in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled onto the sand.

Hunger games this is what the world does. They can bring trucks in to make a Disney World on Gaza over peoples bodies that have not been pulled out of the rubble. They can’t figure out how to get Aiden but they do this to humiliate to drown to kill and there’s still people in… pic.twitter.com/DcenMxi6Ms

— LisaMarie (@RedactedRosalia) March 26, 2024

It is the latest in a string of incidents involving deaths during aid deliveries in the tiny, crowded Palestinian enclave where some people are foraging for weeds to eat and baking barely edible bread from animal feed.

The video shows the apparently lifeless body of a bearded young man being hauled onto the beach, the eyes open but unmoving, and another man trying to revive him with chest compressions as somebody says “It’s over.”

“He swam to get food for his children and he was martyred,” says a man standing on the beach who does not give his name.

A piece of paper retrieved from Monday’s airdrop said in Arabic written over an American flag that the aid was from the United States.

A statement from the Hamas-run health ministry puts the number of people who drowned at seven.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.