Jordan king participates in Gaza aid airdrop

AMMAN, Jordan

Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday participated in an airdrop of humanitarian aid on the Gaza Strip, according to the military.

The move is the second by the monarch as official media had earlier shared a video of him during a relief airdrop operation to Gaza on Feb 11.

"Six C130 aircraft, including three from the Royal Jordanian Air Force and three from the UAE, Egypt, and France, took off from the capital Amman as part of a humanitarian aid operation aimed at alleviating the suffering of Gaza residents,'' the army said in a statement.

"One of the aircraft was allocated to the Jordanian field hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, which suffers from a severe shortage of essential supplies,'' it added.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip following an Oct. 7 Hamas attack, killing nearly 29,900 people and causing mass destruction and shortages of necessities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza

*Writing by Mohammad Sio