logo
Mile after mile of grey rubble - the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza

Mile after mile of grey rubble - the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza

Sky News28-07-2025
Why you can trust Sky News
We are on our way to Gaza with the Jordanian military.
The aircraft is hot and noisy and as we get closer, the atmosphere gets more tense. Aircrew gesture with their hands to tell us how many minutes there are to go. Fifteen. Six. One.
The Jordanian military C-130 flies out over the sea before banking and heading inland for Gaza. The parachutes, attached to the top of each of the eight pallets, are prepared for the drop.
As land approaches, I look down. The ground is modern and built up - we're still over southern Israel.
Then a few short minutes later, it's clear we've crossed Gaza's border.
The ground turns grey, the shapes of buildings disappear, there are no cars, no people.
You can see the outline of communities and villages that are now flattened. Mile after mile of grey rubble.
This mission by the Royal Jordanian Air Force is one of the first aid drop flights since Israel announced they could resume. It is carrying eight tonnes of food and baby formula.
Foreign nations know this is a deeply flawed way of delivering aid - road convoys are far more effective and can carry far more - but the Jordanian flight crew say the need in Gaza is so urgent, it's simply an attempt to do something.
When the aircraft ramp opens, the aid is pushed out and it's gone in seconds.
The parachutes seem peaceful as they open and their fall slows. But dropping food from the sky is a dangerous and undignified way to feed people.
On the ground it's chaos.
Our colleagues in Gaza say the fighting for food has become lethal - gangs are now punching and stabbing people to reach it first. Most critically, it's not getting to the weakest. To those who really need it.
One man becomes emotional as he describes racing to find food and leaving with nothing.
"I came only for my son," he says. "I wouldn't come here if it was just for me. When you have a child, they need bread."
He's an engineer in normal times and seems in disbelief that his life has come to this. "The aid comes from the sky and we have to run after it. I've never had to do this in my life."
It is hoped Israel's humanitarian pauses in fighting will rapidly increase food distribution by road but it's very unclear how that is going.
Hospitals in Gaza have reported another 14 deaths from starvation in the last 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.
Airstrikes killed another at least 78 Palestinians across Gaza on Monday, local health officials said.
We cannot verify these numbers because Israel has not allowed international journalists access to Gaza.
And Monday's flight came with strict media conditions.
We were told the Israeli side had warned that any shots of Gaza filmed from the air could result in these aid flights being cancelled.
But Israel's tight grip has not stopped the images from Gaza getting out, horrifying people around the world.
The question now is what more the international community will do about it.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Terrible thirst hits Gaza with polluted aquifers and broken pipelines
Terrible thirst hits Gaza with polluted aquifers and broken pipelines

Reuters

time17 hours ago

  • Reuters

Terrible thirst hits Gaza with polluted aquifers and broken pipelines

GAZA/CAIRO, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Weakened by hunger, many Gazans trek across a ruined landscape each day to haul all their drinking and washing water - a painful load that is still far below the levels needed to keep people healthy. Even as global attention has turned to starvation in Gaza, where after 22 months of a devastating Israeli military campaign a global hunger monitor says a famine scenario is unfolding, the water crisis is just as severe according to aid groups. Though some water comes from small desalination units run by aid agencies, most is drawn from wells in a brackish aquifer that has been further polluted by sewage and chemicals seeping through the rubble, spreading diarrhoea and hepatitis. Israeli pipelines that once supplied Gaza with much of its clean water are now dry. Israel stopped all water and electricity supply to Gaza early in the war. Although it resumed some supply later, pipelines were damaged and Gaza water officials say none has entered recently. COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not respond to a request for comment on whether Israel is supplying water. Most water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed and pumps from the aquifer often rely on electricity from small generators - for which fuel is rarely available. Moaz Mukhaimar, aged 23 and a university student before the war, said he has to walk about a kilometre, queuing for two hours, to fetch water. He often goes three times a day, dragging it back to the family tent over bumpy ground on a small metal handcart. "How long will we have to stay like this?" he asked, pulling two larger canisters of very brackish water to use for cleaning and two smaller ones of cleaner water to drink. His mother, Umm Moaz, 53, said the water he collects is needed for the extended family of 20 people living in their small group of tents in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. "The children keep coming and going and it is hot. They keep wanting to drink. Who knows if tomorrow we will be able to fill up again," she said. Their struggle for water is replicated across the tiny, crowded territory where nearly everybody is living in temporary shelters or tents without sewage or hygiene facilities and not enough water to drink, cook and wash as disease spreads. The United Nations says the minimum emergency level of water consumption per person is 15 litres a day for drinking, cooking, cleaning and washing. Average daily consumption in Israel is around 247 litres a day according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Bushra Khalidi, humanitarian policy lead for aid agency Oxfam in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories said the average consumption in Gaza now was 3-5 litres a day. Oxfam said last week that preventable and treatable water-borne diseases were "ripping through Gaza", with reported rates increasing by almost 150% over the past three months. Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it provides adequate aid for the territory's 2.3 million inhabitants. "Water scarcity is definitely increasing very much each day and people are basically rationing between either they want to use water for drinking or they want to use a lot for hygiene," said Danish Malik, a global water and sanitation official for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Merely queuing for water and carrying it now accounts for hours each day for many Gazans, often involving jostling with others for a place in the queue. Scuffles have sometimes broken out, Gazans say. Collecting water is often the job of children as their parents seek out food or other necessities. "The children have lost their childhood and become carriers of plastic containers, running behind water vehicles or going far into remote areas to fill them for their families," said Munther Salem, water resources head at the Gaza Water and Environment Quality Authority. With water so hard to get, many people living near the beach wash in the sea. A new water pipeline funded by the United Arab Emirates is planned, to serve 600,000 people in southern Gaza from a desalination plant in Egypt. But it could take several more weeks to be connected. Much more is needed, aid agencies say. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said the long-term deprivations were becoming deadly. "Starvation and dehydration are no longer side effects of this conflict. They are very much frontline effects." Oxfam's Khalidi said a ceasefire and unfettered access for aid agencies was needed to resolve the crisis. "Otherwise we will see people dying from the most preventable diseases in Gaza - which is already happening before our eyes."

Retired Hampshire and Isle of Wight fire engines sent to Ukraine
Retired Hampshire and Isle of Wight fire engines sent to Ukraine

BBC News

time2 days ago

  • BBC News

Retired Hampshire and Isle of Wight fire engines sent to Ukraine

Two retired fire engines have been sent to tackle blazes in and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) retired the vehicles from frontline service and replaced them with newer sold them back to manufacturer Angloco who gave them to Action Beyond Words, a humanitarian organisation, which delivered them to of the appliances has now been delivered to Mizhhiria in the west of the country and the other was sent to the city of Zmiiv in the north-east to tackle fires in the Kharkiv region, close to the country's border with Russia. HIWFRS fleet operations manager, Colin Carter said: "We are delighted to see our old vehicles recycled to help our firefighting colleagues out in Ukraine."These fire engines had served their purpose here in Hampshire and Isle of Wight, and had been replaced by more modern vehicles, so it is great to see that they are still of use and continue to help to save lives, thanks to the work of Angloco and Actions Beyond Words."He added that they sell all of their appliances when they reach the "end-of-life", which allows them to reinvest the funds back into the fire service. You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.

Israel says it will allow controlled entry of goods into Gaza via merchants
Israel says it will allow controlled entry of goods into Gaza via merchants

Reuters

time2 days ago

  • Reuters

Israel says it will allow controlled entry of goods into Gaza via merchants

Aug 5 (Reuters) - Israel says it will allow gradual and controlled entry of goods to Gaza through local merchants, an Israeli military agency that coordinates aid said on Tuesday, as global monitors say famine is unfolding in the enclave, impacting the hostages Hamas holds. Israel's COGAT said a mechanism has been approved by the cabinet to expand the scope of humanitarian aid, allowing the entry of supplies to Gaza through the private sector. The agency said the approved goods include basic food products, baby food, fruits and vegetables, and hygiene supplies. "This aims to increase the volume of aid entering the Gaza Strip, while reducing reliance on aid collection by the U.N. and international organisations," it added. It was unclear how this aid operation would work given the widespread destruction in Gaza. Palestinian and U.N. officials say Gaza needs around 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements - the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war. Images of starving Palestinians including children have alarmed the world in recent weeks, while a video released by Hamas on Sunday showing an emaciated captive drew sharp criticism from Western powers. Israel in response to a rising international uproar, announced last week steps to let more aid reach Gaza, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, approving air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys. Hamas said it was prepared to coordinate with the Red Cross to deliver aid to hostages it holds in Gaza, if Israel permanently opens humanitarian corridors and halts airstrikes during the distribution of aid. Israel and the United States urged the U.N. in May to work through an organisation they back, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which employs a U.S. logistics firm run by a former CIA officer and armed U.S. veterans. The U.N. refused as it questioned GHF neutrality and accused the distribution model of militarising aid and forcing displacement. Palestinians were killed near GHF sites where limited aid was distributed, with the U.N. estimating that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food since May, most near the organisation's distribution sites. GHF denies that there have been deadly incidents at its sites, and says the deadliest have been near other aid convoys. The war in Gaza began when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants. According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Hamas, thus far, has barred humanitarian organisations from having any kind of access to the hostages and families have little or no details of their conditions.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store