Thousands gather as much-needed aid is airdropped in Gaza

Planes airdropped boxes of aid onto Rafah and Khan Younis on Tuesday, where hundreds of Palestinians gathered to try and get some of assistance falling from the sky over the Gaza Strip.

Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France airdropped tons of humanitarian aid over Gaza, Egypt’s military said.

Most humanitarian aid for Gaza goes through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

The United Nations says 138 truckloads of aid entered Gaza on Tuesday.

Aid groups said they’ve faced a cumbersome inspection process that allows only a trickle of aid to enter even as needs mounted. Israel says the inspections are needed for security reasons.

United Nations agencies and aid groups say the ongoing hostilities, the Israeli military’s refusal to facilitate deliveries and the breakdown of order inside Gaza make it increasingly difficult to bring vital aid to much of the coastal enclave.

The World Food Program said last week it paused food deliveries to isolated northern Gaza, where the U.N. children’s agency says one in six children are acutely malnourished.

A U.N. report in December found that a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are starving.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,700 people, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. It does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.

The first and only cease-fire in the war, in late November, brought about the release of about 100 hostages — mostly women, children and foreign nationals — in exchange for about 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, as well as a brief halt in the fighting.

Roughly 130 hostages remain in Gaza, but Israel says about a quarter of them are dead.