Tel Aviv, 6 November 2023 (dpa/MIA) - The Jordanian air force has dropped medical supplies over the Gaza Strip, Jordanian King Abdullah II said early on Monday.

"Our fearless air force personnel air-dropped at midnight urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza," King Abdullah said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

"This is our duty to aid our brothers and sisters injured in the war on Gaza. We will always be there for our Palestinian brethren" he wrote.

Israel has held Gaza under a near-complete blockade for several weeks, since Hamas fighters carried out unprecedented terrorist attacks on Israeli communities.

The blockade meant largely cutting off supplies of drinking water, food, electricity and fuel, apart from several dozen trucks of international aid that have been allowed in via Gaza's border crossing with Egypt.

According to the newspaper The Times of Israel, it was unclear whether the aid supplies reached the hospital or whether the operation was carried out with Israel's knowledge or approval.

The Jordanian king's post included photos of a crate draped in the Jordanian national flag being loaded into an airforce transport plane.

Other X users responded to King Abdullah's post, saying the claim was not true, and that the aid had been flown to an airfield in Egypt.

Israel is demanding that all aid supplies, which have so far only reached the south of the Gaza Strip via the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, be checked. The Israeli army says this is to prevent weapons from being smuggled to the Islamist Hamas movement, which rules Gaza and carried out an unprecedented large-scale attack on Israel on October 7.

Aid organizations say that the aid supplies that have so far reached the Gaza Strip by lorry via the Rafah crossing from Egypt are nowhere near enough.

Photo: EPA