FRANCE 24 report: France carries out airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza

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00:00At this military base in Jordan, four tons of humanitarian aid are being loaded onto

00:06a French army plane.

00:08The pallets have been prepared by Jordanians.

00:11They are full of foodstuffs and basic necessities.

00:15But this airdrop operation into Gaza is not without risks.

00:19The soldiers are making the final safety checks.

00:22It's very important when releasing to make sure there's no interference with the parachute.

00:28These big packages are the loads we're going to drop.

00:33As you can see, here is the platform, there's the cargo.

00:36In fact, there's a first parachute that will open the second cargo parachute, which is made

00:40up of ten canopies.

00:42So with the ten canopies, we can be sure that everything will go well.

00:45Even if one canopy doesn't open, there will still be nine others, so there's no risk.

00:52In all, six aircrafts are on this mission.

00:56On board the French C-130, there's a dozen paratroopers.

01:01In the sky over Gaza, the hold opens out onto the sea.

01:05It reveals the enclave completely devastated by 21 months of Israel's bombardments.

01:12As far as the eye can see, homes have been completely flattened.

01:1670% of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to the United Nations.

01:23During these flights, the Israeli army ceases fire to allow Palestinians to reach the aid.

01:29The soldiers are in position, yet the cargo hold is closing without any aid being dropped.

01:36The pilot has had to make the call whether the drop zone is safe.

01:41We made a first pass and there were population movements that could have led us to have doubts

01:46about the drop.

01:47If there was the slightest doubt, the procedure is to cancel the drop and return to the holding

01:52area and coordinate to try to make another pass once the other aircraft had passed.

01:58After around 20 minutes of waiting offshore, the aircraft opens up again and the packages

02:05are dropped into Gaza.

02:08However, aid drops like this have widely been criticised as inefficient and even dangerous.

02:14The head of the United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that one plane costs up

02:19to 100 times more than one lorry carrying aid by road.

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