Jordan’s king takes part in aid airdrop over Gaza
He helped soldiers drop crate of aid bound for Jordanian field hospital
AMMAN: Jordanian King Abdullah II recently took part in a humanitarian aid drop into war-torn Gaza, according to state TV footage showing him abord an air force C-130 transport plane.
The king can be seen on board the flight in military uniform, in the 56-second video broadcast on Jordan’s Al Mamlaka channel on Monday.
He was helping soldiers drop a crate said to contain humanitarian and medical aid bound for the Jordanian field hospital in northern Gaza, in a joint operation with the Netherlands.
In mid-December, King Abdullah’s daughter, Princess Salma, a first lieutenant and pilot in the Royal Jordanian Air Force, also took part in an airdrop of medical supplies to the field hospital.
On November 20, Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein arrived in Egypt’s El Arish airport near Gaza to supervise delivery of the second Jordanian field hospital to the besieged Palestinian territory.
US President Joe Biden thanked Jordan for providing humanitarian aid, during a White House meeting Monday where the king appealed for a full ceasefire to end the war in Gaza.
Abdullah “personally got in a plane and helped conduct an air drop of urgently needed medical supplies into Gaza”, Biden said.
“I understand that two of his children have also joined those air drops. They helped fly humanitarian supplies in.”
Jordan has conducted 11 airdrop operations since the war broke out on October 7 between Israel and Hamas militants in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Amman has delivered a total of almost 720 tonnes of humanitarian aid from 49 aircraft, 11 of them via airdrops, according to the Jordanian Royal Charity Commission.
325 Jordanian trucks also delivered a total of 4,376 tonnes of aid by land, according to the Commission.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden and King Abdullah discussed the importance of stability in the West Bank and in the Middle East more broadly, the White House said in a statement.
In the meeting, Biden also underscored the importance of upholding the status quo on a hill in Jerusalem’s Old City known to Jews as Har Ha Bayit, or Temple Mount, and to Muslims internationally as Al Haram Al Sharif, or The Noble Sanctuary, the White House said in a statement.
The Al Aqsa mosque, which Muslims regard as the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, lies there.
The meeting with Abdullah comes as Biden and his aides are working to broker another pause in Israel’s war against Hamas in order to send humanitarian aid and supplies into the region and get hostages out. The White House faces growing criticism from Arab Americans over the administration’s continued support for Israel in the face of rising casualties in Gaza since Hamas launched its Oct 7 attack on Israel.
“The key elements of the deal are on the table,” Biden said alongside the king, though “there are gaps that remain.” He said the US would do “everything possible” to make an agreement happen: a pause to fighting for at least six weeks and the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas.