Jordan profited up to $400,000 per Gaza aid airdrop, sources say
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jordan-profited-gaza-aid-airdrop-sources
Jordanian authorities have profited significantly from overseeing the delivery of international aid into Gaza during Israel’s ongoing war on the besieged Palestinian enclave, Middle East Eye has learned.
Sources say the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization (JHCO), an official body overseeing humanitarian aid into Gaza, has coordinated with Israeli authorities to act as the sole conduit for aid passing through Jordan.
MEE spoke with sources from international aid organisations and people with direct knowledge of the JHCO’s operations.
One source said much of the aid attributed to the JHCO in fact originates from foreign governments and NGOs, both Jordanian and international, while direct contributions from the Jordanian state are negligible.
Jordanian authorities have demanded $2,200 for every aid truck entering Gaza, according to two NGO sources and two others familiar with the scheme.
The fee, aid organisations were told by the JHCO, is paid directly to the Jordanian Armed Forces.
In addition, Jordan has charged between $200,000 and $400,000 per airdrop over Gaza, the sources said. Around $200,000 was charged for each random drop, and $400,000 for targeted missions, despite each aircraft carrying the equivalent of less than half a truckload of aid.
Sources said Jordan has expanded its logistical infrastructure in response to rising revenues from the aid operations. According to MEE's sources, the kingdom recently acquired 200 new aid trucks through a foreign grant and is building larger UN-supported storage depots in anticipation of increased deliveries under new international arrangements.
Middle East Eye asked the Jordanian foreign ministry, armed forces and the JHCO for comment, but received no response by the time of publication.
War is a racket.
First responders in Gaza say running out of supplies
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250508-first-responders-in-gaza-run-out-of-supplies
Israel denies a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where it plans to expand military operations to force Hamas to free hostages held there since the Iran-backed group's unprecedented October 2023 attack.
"Seventy-five percent of our vehicles have stopped operating due to a lack of diesel fuel," the civil defence agency's spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. He added that its teams, who play a critical role as first responders in the Gaza Strip, were also facing a "severe shortage of electricity generators and oxygen devices".
For weeks, UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations have warned of dwindling supplies of everything from fuel and medicine to food and clean water in the coastal territory that is home to 2.4 million Palestinians
"It is unacceptable that humanitarian aid is not allowed into the Gaza Strip," Pierre Krahenbuhl, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told reporters in Geneva Thursday.
The situation in Gaza is on a "razor's edge" and "the next few days are absolutely decisive", he added.
The UN's agency for children, UNICEF, warned that Gaza's children face "a growing risk of starvation, illness and death" after UN-supported kitchens shut down due to lack of food supplies.
Over 20 independent experts mandated by the UN's Human Rights Council demanded action on Wednesday to avert the "annihilation" of Palestinians in Gaza.
Senior civil defence official Mohammad Mughayyir told AFP that Israeli bombardment across Gaza on Thursday killed 21 people, including nine in a strike that targeted the Abu Rayyan family home in the northern city of Beit Lahia.
On Thursday, Palestinians waited in line to donate blood at a field hospital in Gaza's southern city of Khan Yunis, an AFP journalist reported. "In these difficult circumstances, we have come to support the injured and sick, amid severe food shortages and a lack of proteins, by donating blood", Moamen al-Eid, a Palestinian waiting in the line, told AFP.
Hind Joba, the hospital's laboratory head, said that "there is no food or drink, the crossings are closed, and there is no access to nutritious or protein-rich food".
"Still, people responded to the call, fulfilling their humanitarian duty by donating blood" despite the toll on their own bodies, she added. "But this blood is vital, and they know that every drop helps save the life of an injured person."
