March 8, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

A video obtained by CNN on Friday shows how a humanitarian airdrop into Gaza went wrong when the parachute on a pallet of aid apparently malfunctioned.

At least five people were killed and 10 others injured when the aid fell on them, according to a journalist on the scene, and a doctor who confirmed the toll.

In the video, the pallet and its contents can be seen falling at a high speed toward residential buildings near the Fairouz Towers in western Gaza. As the aid raced toward the ground, free-falling bags came apart in a shower of debris, and can later be seen and heard impacting the ground with loud thuds.

While most of the other parachutes appeared to deploy properly, the pallets were still falling at a potentially dangerous speed.

The parachutes attached to three pallets collided with each other shortly before hitting the ground, the video shows. Those three chutes fell in an area where a number of people had gathered, and appeared to hit the ground at a higher speed than the other packages.

The transport plane seen delivering the faulty airdrop is a military Boeing C-17, although it was not immediately clear which air force was flying the mission.

CNN's Jonny Hallam contributed to the report.

The Palestinian foreign ministry said it rejects Israel’s investigations into the killing of at least 118 Palestinians and injuring of more than 700 others around an aid convoy in Gaza City on February 29. 

The Palestinian ministry said the international community should follow through with an independent international investigation committee, adding that the "the accused cannot investigate itself."

What Israel said: The Israel Defense Forces said that a summary of its initial investigation found its troops did not fire at the humanitarian convoy, but at a "number of suspects" who approached the nearby forces. CNN cannot independently verify the IDF’s findings.

What an eyewitness said: A local journalist in Gaza, Khader Al Za’anoun, who witnessed the incident, told CNN that at the time that the chaos only began after Israeli troops opened fire and that many of the victims were run over by trucks in the ensuing panic.

What the UN reported: The United Nations said earlier this week that most of the civilians wounded in the incident presented gunshot wounds.

The IDF said that an "independent examination body," the Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), will continue to investigate the incident.

Palestinians in northern Gaza are struggling to make use of aid recently airdropped by the US and Jordan, because it does not include essential food supplies, a journalist based in the north told CNN on Thursday. 

Journalist Abdel Qader Al Sabbah, reporting from the city of Jabalya, told CNN that the airdrops of aid “are useless as they don’t carry essential foodstuffs.”

Al Sabbah told CNN the food aid is ready-to-eat meals, which are single portions intended to be eaten the same day, rather than foodstuffs that could be stored and used over several days. 

“You are lucky if you even get a hold of these meals. … I don’t even bother to go searching for these aid parcels because people are always fighting over them,” he said.

Footage obtained by CNN shows dozens of parachutes carrying parcels descending from a plane conducting an airdrop. The video was filmed in an area called Al-Suddaniya, near the northern city of Beit Lahia. People can be heard screaming as the parachutes get closer to the ground.

Remember: US and Jordanian forces have carried out three airdrops over the past week, with 38,000 meals dropped on both Thursday and Saturday, and over 36,000 dropped on Tuesday, according to United States Central Command.

United Nations officials also said airdrops and plans for a maritime corridors can deliver far from the amount of aid needed, with land routes being much more effective.

At least five people were killed and 10 others injured on Friday when airdropped aid packages fell on them in the Al Shati camp west of Gaza City, according to a journalist on the scene who witnessed the incident and confirmed by a doctor.

Khader Al Za'anoun told CNN he witnessed the aid packages falling from planes over the camp, but he cannot confirm which nation was behind the air drop.

Muhammad Al-Sheikh, head of the emergency care department at Al-Shifa medical complex in Gaza City, confirmed five people were killed in the incident.

Some of those injured and transferred to Al-Shifa are in serious condition, according to Al-Sheikh.

At least 9,000 women have been killed in Gaza since October 7, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said in a statement Friday.

Here's what else the statement said about the conditions of women in Gaza:

The UN's Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is the main aid agency in Gaza, also posted a statement on X (formerly Twitter), saying an average of 63 women are killed in the enclave per day. "On #InternationalWomensDay, the women in #Gaza continue to endure the consequences of this brutal war," it said.

UNRWA's Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said more work is required to support and protect women. "An immediate ceasefire is the minimum," he wrote.

The European Union is planning to open an emergency maritime aid corridor from Cyprus to Gaza this weekend in a joint effort with allies including the US, the chief of the bloc, President Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Friday.

“We are now very close to the opening of the corridor, hopefully this Saturday, this Sunday, and I’m very glad to see that the initial pilot operation will be launched today,” she told reporters in Larnaca, in Cyprus. It came after US President Joe Biden revealed plans to establish a temporary port on the Gaza coast.

Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the Republic of Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom will join efforts to launch the corridor, according to an EU news statement. The "complex" operation will be “closely coordinated with the Government of Israel,” the statement added.

What Israel is saying: Foreign ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat welcomed the plan, saying it will “allow the increase of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, after security checks are carried out in accordance with Israeli standards." Haiat urged other countries to join the initiative and said, “Israel will continue to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip in accordance with the rules of war and in coordination with the United States and our allies around the world.”

Calls for more land crossings: Israel's siege on Gaza has drastically diminished essential supplies entering the strip, where Palestinians are facing starvation, dehydration and deadly hunger.

Israeli authorities insist there is “no limit” on the amount of relief that can enter Gaza, but humanitarian groups have repeatedly warned Israel's restrictions on land crossings into the strip has throttled aid distribution efforts.

Sigrid Kaag, United Nations senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told reporters on Thursday the optimal solution is by land, "it’s easier faster, cheaper." She added: “When everything goes through one or two crossings, you can’t expect a miracle."

CNN's Richard Roth and Sahar Akbarzai contributed reporting.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has announced that the United Kingdom will join the US in opening an emergency maritime corridor off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast to deliver more aid.

“People in Gaza are in desperate humanitarian need,” Cameron wrote on social media on Friday.

The announcement comes a day after President Joe Biden unveiled plans for the US military to establish a temporary port to bring additional aid into Gaza.

Remember: Israel's severe restrictions on aid entering Gaza have drained essential supplies, condemning Palestinians there to starvation, dehydration, and deadly disease.

Israel insists there is “no limit” on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but its inspection regime on aid trucks has meant that relief is barely trickling in. A CNN investigation revealed the most frequently rejected items by the Israelis include anesthetics, oxygen cylinders, ventilators, and water filtration systems.

Calls for more aid routes: Melanie Ward, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians, a UK-based NGO, called on US and UK leaders to "ensure that their ally Israel immediately reopens land crossings into Gaza to allow safe and unfettered access for aid and aid workers."

CNN's Sana Noor Haq contributed reporting.

At least 118 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces opened fire at a Gaza City food distribution site last week, drawing widespread condemnation.

The Israeli military said Friday that a summary of their initial investigation found its troops did not fire at the humanitarian convoy, but at "a number of suspects" who approached the nearby forces. CNN cannot independently verify the IDF's findings.

A witness told CNN many of the victims were killed when they were run over by trucks in the panic following the gunshots in what has become known as the "flour massacre."

What does the IDF say? The IDF said thousands of Palestinians crowded around the convoy and took the trucks' equipment, during which "incidents of significant harm" occurred to civilians from a stampede and people being run over by trucks. Its troops unleashed "cautionary fire in order to distance the suspects," because they "posed a real threat to the forces at that point."

What do eyewitnesses say? A local journalist in Gaza, Khader Al Za’anoun, who witnessed the incident, said at the time that the chaos only began once Israeli troops opened fire, and that many of the victims were run over by trucks in the ensuing panic.

What do Palestinian officials say? Gaza's health ministry said at least 118 people were killed and more than 700 injured, making it one of the single deadliest killings of Gazans since the war began. CNN cannot independently confirm the figures. 

What does the UN say? The UN said most of the injured civilians had gunshot wounds, but that it did not examine any of the dead bodies and so could not say if the same was true for those killed.

CNN's Abeer Salman and Jeremy Diamond contributed reporting.

US forces shot down four anti-ship cruise missiles and one drone over Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Thursday, the US Central Command said.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to pressure Israel and its allies to stop the war in Gaza.

CENTCOM said it also shot down three drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward the Gulf of Aden.

Escalating attacks: Three crew members were killed when a Houthi ballistic missile struck a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday — the first fatal attack by the Houthis since they began targeting vessels.