Dubai ruler orders resumption of flights to deliver UAE aid to Gaza

Seventeen flights have already been dispatched from Dubai using a combination of Boeing 747s and C130s transport planes carrying food, blankets, kitchen sets and medicine and hygiene kits.

Seventeen planes have already been dispatched from Dubai, carrying food, blankets, kitchen sets and medicine and hygiene kits to Gaza. Courtesy of WAM

DUBAI // The UAE has sent more than Dh23.3 million of aid to Gaza amid growing violence in the territory.

Seventeen aid flights of Boeing 747s and C130 transport planes have already been sent from Dubai carrying food, blankets, kitchen sets and medicine and hygiene kits.

Supplies are running low at the aid depot, so a plane was sent to Brindisi, Italy, to stock up at the UN’s second largest aid store, after Dubai.

It collected 30,000 blankets to deliver to Jordan for shipment by lorry to Gaza.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, ordered the flights to help supply the UN body assisting Gazan refugees, the World Food Programme, World Health Organisation and others.

There are believed to have been about 1,900 Gazans killed in Israeli attacks on the territory and more than 9,000 wounded. Nine UN staff are among the dead.

As many as 260,000 Gazans have now been relocated to more than 90 UN shelters.

Among those helping with the relief effort is the Emirates Red Crescent, which has been distributing food, water and first aid for more than 30 days.

It has so far distributed 3,000 food baskets, aid kits, clothes packages, and 3,000 gallons of mineral water.