On a Jordanian aid airdrop over Gaza City

Amman, Jordan/sky above Gaza – A hulking military cargo plane sits on the tarmac of a Royal Jordanian Air Force base in the early morning light.

Two maintenance engineers unlock a compartment in the aircraft’s fuselage and disappear behind a metal hood that shelters a complex nest of wires.

The two men, who graduated together from the military academy five years ago, chat with warm familiarity as they perform final preflight checks.

Two Jordanian cargo planes will take off for an aid airdrop over Gaza around midday, followed by four other aircraft from Germany, Egypt and the United States.

They are working on a US turboprop C-130 Hercules, a model often used for airdropping troops, equipment or aid into hard-to-reach locations.

The two men take a final look into the belly of the plane, its loading ramp firmly planted on the runway.

Sixteen large pallets loaded with essential aid sit in the plane’s cargo hold, ready to go.

A series of military vehicles arrive on the tarmac and several special forces personnel in distinctive red berets file out, ready to check the parachutes attached to today’s payload.

There is a continuous stream of personnel; as one team completes their checks, another appears ready to perform another control. Everyone looks stern, occasionally breaking into light-hearted banter before getting back to work.

This is a personal mission for these Jordanian officers, who feel their identity is deeply interwoven with that of their Palestinian neighbours and want to make sure the mission goes off without a hitch.

“The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip don’t deserve what is happening to them,” says MA, a friendly 24-year-old with an exquisitely groomed moustache who can only reveal his initials due to security protocol.

“Palestinians are our brothers,” MA continues, looking down at the ground.

Watching the news and seeing people in Gaza trying to find enough food and survive the constant bombardment, with children and families killed en masse, he feels his “heart break in a million pieces”.

The huge plane provides welcome shade from the early morning sun for the teams who, like MA, have arrived early due to the personal nature of the mission.

MA’s colleague begins to meticulously explain their role, which he says includes jacking the aircraft up for maintenance and checking all the wheels.

MA prefers to keep things in layman’s terms, saying that engineers keep everything running from the “smallest bolt to the big wings”.

Patting the plane’s body, he says his work is complete for the moment.

In the hold, half a dozen special forces personnel wind through the big pallets, wrapped securely in polythene sheeting with cardboard boxes of dry food packages and milk formula peeking through.

A serious-looking special forces officer tugs at the straps harnessing parachutes to each pallet. The special forces are responsible for the parachutes, so he takes his time pulling at every strap as a fierce-looking superior peers over his shoulder.

The parachutes are vital for any aid drop as these heavy pallets fall from great heights – lethal if nothing slows them down, as happened in early March when five people were killed and several injured in the Shati refugee camp after an airdrop parachute failed to deploy.

As he reaches the 16th crate, he pats the final parachute approvingly: “These are from the UK; they’re good,” then walks off the plane and leaps into a transport vehicle.

Finally, it is go time: hatches closed, loading ramp up and engines fired up to make sure they are ready for the mission. Non-essential ground crew don their sunglasses and retreat to the hangar as giant propellor blades throw up sand.

The all clear is given and the Hercules rolls down the runway, with Amman’s skyline soon receding through the round windows.

The city’s hilly outskirts, sprinkled with beige apartment blocks and green-walled gardens, disappear behind a blanket of light, low-lying clouds.

The engine’s din drowns out any other noise, and three loadmasters securing the cargo have to communicate with the pilots via bulky headphones.

Everyone is focused.

Two personnel keep their gazes fixed out the windows as northern Israel appears through the broken clouds. The airdrops are coordinated with Israel, which has to approve planes crossing its airspace.

The plane flies over Tel Aviv and the deep blue Mediterranean Sea before turning sharply, levelling parallel to the coast as it heads towards the Gaza Strip.

Two special forces personnel stand at the back of the plane, shifting their weight from foot to foot as the plane rises and falls through mild turbulence.

They buckle themselves into harnesses before their colleagues come over to double-check that everything and everyone is securely attached to the inside of the plane.

The plane shakes as it hits turbulence, and everyone reaches for something to grab hold of. One crew member lifts his eyebrows in mild irritation at having to break from his preparations.

The chief loadmaster gives a thumbs-up, just in time for the plane to turn sharply towards the sandy beaches of Gaza.

Until now, no one has an exact location where the drop will take place, but it is clearly close.

The two harnessed special forces personnel stand by the pallets as the two-minute signal goes out and the plane’s nose drops into a sharp descent that levels out to show a vista of Gaza City’s decimated skyline from the windows.

The cargo door opens, making everyone squint at the horizon as bright sunlight streams through.

The pilot pulls the plane’s nose up, making the horizon disappear from view, and Gaza City suddenly appears, framed in the open hatch at the back of the aircraft.

The loadmaster gives a thumbs-up to release a row of eight crates from the ropes holding them in place. Gravity pulls them over their tracks and they drop out of the plane, pilot chutes fluttering then parachutes releasing, flashes of pink and blue that quickly recede into the distance.

Another thumbs-up from the loadmaster and the second batch is released.

For a few solemn moments, no one moves as the parachutes, now specks, appear to land near the beach.

Everyone looks out silently at Gaza City. Apartment blocks are in ruins, and entire swaths of the city appear almost entirely destroyed.

When the plane banks, the cityscape gives way to the countryside, which is just as badly scarred by Israel’s relentless war on Gaza.

The hatch closes as the plane heads home. The contrast between the battle-torn landscape and relatively undisturbed patchwork fields marking where Gaza ends and southern Israel begins is visible from the windows.

The crew start to relax at the back of the plane, visibly relieved that things went off without a hitch.

The special forces personnel remove their harnesses and huddle to discuss how the mission went. Every other word is inaudible to the rest of the crew as the plane rattles through the air.

A loadmaster falls asleep slumped against the wall of the plane, exhausted. He had been one of the people who loaded the plane the previous evening and was there for the numerous safety checks at the break of dawn.

He wakes up and walks past stacks of water bottles sitting untouched, as most service personnel are fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

He pulls off his headphones and pulls out his phone, opening messages that had been delivered many hours earlier. He exudes calm, nodding slowly at his colleagues who ask if walking into the now-empty cargo bay is safe.

About half an hour later, the plane touches down at the airbase, rumbling to a stop.

It has performed numerous manoeuvres over tightly restricted airspace in a high-octane hour and a half.

This was a complex operation that required rigorous planning, multiple security checks and sensitive coordination between several nations. It has taken a toll on the crew, who are visibly exhausted.

MA, like many of his colleagues, says that despite his pride in taking part in these missions, the aid being delivered is nowhere near enough.

Aid agencies have criticised the airdrops as a costly and ineffective way of delivering aid.

The northern part of Gaza could already be facing famine, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative on Monday.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said also on Monday that famine is “imminent” in the northern Gaza Strip.

“There’s an easier and cheaper way to bring in much-needed supplies into the Gaza Strip … That is via the road including sending more trucks from Israel into the Gaza Strip,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA communications director, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

The quantity of aid that could be delivered over land, MA says, would be far greater.

“It’s our duty to deliver this aid to our family [the Palestinians], but it is not enough,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone.

Helping gives him some respite before he is filled once again with an overwhelming sense of sadness, he says.