At least 18 Palestinians have died in the northern Gaza Strip in the past few hours as Dozens of “hungry” people went to sea for aid packages Humanitarian aid launched from the air.

Twelve of them drowned and six suffocated as a result of the stampede.This was reported by the Hamas-controlled sector’s health ministry.

“Delivery of humanitarian aid by air has become there is a real danger to the lives of starving citizens.”– he condemned.

This is not the first time that airdrops have claimed the lives of Gazan civilians, as On March 4, five civilians were killed and several were injured. due to the impact of pallets containing humanitarian aid after parachutes failed to open in Gaza City.

Faced with this situation, the Palestinian authorities They are calling for an end to these types of “unhelpful, offensive and inappropriate” operations. and is asking Israel to “immediately” open the remaining land border crossings – five of which are not open – to alleviate the “severe” food shortages affecting civilians in the northern Gaza Strip for the sixth month in a row.

Israel, for its part, insists that the humanitarian aid problem This problem will not be solved by opening more border crossings. and accuses the UN of failing to distribute packages coming through two land checkpoints that have been in place since the start of the war: Kerem Shalom on Israeli soil and Rafah on the Egyptian border.

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And while Israel has twice in recent weeks allowed convoys to take a new route that runs directly north of the Gaza Strip, This Monday he prevented the passage of columns from the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA in English), which he accuses of links to the Hamas group.

A few weeks ago, the international community, including Jordan, France, Egypt or USA, as an alternative to delivering more aid to the northern Gaza Strip, where 300,000 Gazans suffer from hunger.

“We place full responsibility on the US administration. “The international community and the Israeli occupation for continuing these cumulative crimes that the world has failed to stop,” the Gaza ministry criticized in a statement.

At least 23 boys and girls died. according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), due to dehydration and malnutrition in the northern Gaza Strip.

(EFE)