Anxious to dispel suggestions that Jordan may have delivered the aid bypassing Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Monday the Jordanians air-dropped the supplies “in coordination” with them.
“The equipment will be used by the medical staff for patients,” the IDF said.
Jordan has strongly condemned Israel’s bombings of Gaza, calling for a ceasefire.
Last week, Jordan became one of the first countries to recall its ambassador to Israel after accusing it of creating an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip.
Humanitarian ‘pause’ in fighting
The air-drop came two days after Joe Biden, the US president, called for a humanitarian “pause” in fighting, an idea that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has rejected.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, is currently on a diplomatic tour of the Middle East which has included high-level meetings in Iraq, Jordan, Israel and the West Bank.
Inside Gaza, the besieged enclave’s director of hospitals said 16 hospitals have already gone out of service and more are in danger of shutting down in the coming days.
At least 200 people died overnight in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, the Hamas-controlled local health ministry said, adding that the death toll only included victims in Gaza City and the north of the area.
Health officials in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip say over 9,770 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since Oct 7 when Hamas gunmen overran communities in southern Israel, killing 1,300 people, most of them civilians.
