Israel was repeatedly warned that allowing aid to be airdropped would have deadly consequences in Gaza.
For 14-year-old Muhannad Eid, that warning became a reality when he was crushed by a pallet of aid in the enclave on the weekend.
"He was my sweetheart, the love of my life," his mother, Nai'ila Eid, said.
"He is gone, and there is no point in my life. Now I am waiting to die."
Faced with growing and significant international condemnation over starvation in Gaza, Israel chose to allow countries to parachute aid into Gaza several weeks ago.
Although international aid agencies repeatedly have stressed that airdrops are ineffective and dangerous, they've been carried out by countries like Jordan, the UAE, and European nations in a bid to deliver a paltry lifeline into the strip.
On Saturday, one such aid drop was carried out near Nuseirat in Central Gaza.
Footage from the scene showed several pallets parachuting down from the sky and hitting the ground with significant force.
Some of these pallets can weigh up to 1 tonne.
Hundreds of people, many of them children and teenagers, raced toward the packages of aid.
Next to one of the pallets, being pulled apart by the hungry and desperate Palestinians, Muhannad's motionless body could be seen lying in the dirt.
He was carried to hospital, where his distraught family mourned him.
"The food is scarce. He said that he would get something, a can of sardines or sauce," Muhannad's father Zakaria Eid said.
"The aid package fell on him, directly on his head. His skull and neck were fractured. He had a brain laceration.
"The aid that is dropped from the air, it's not human. It's like they're throwing food to dogs or wild animals in the jungle."
More aid delivered by air
Airdrops are currently one of the only three aid delivery mechanisms in Gaza.
The second is through the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The United Nations has said more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating, most shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.
The GHF denies there have been deadly incidents inside its sites and says the deadliest have been near other aid convoys.
Israel also rejects the figures, but does not provide its own data on deaths.
Organisations like the World Food Programme also deliver some aid, but say their missions along two aid corridors still face considerable obstructions, even after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced it would create "secure corridors" to help convoys travel to depots.
On Wednesday, the IDF said it was continuing a "series of actions aimed at improving the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip".
"Over the past few hours, 119 aid packages containing food for the residents of the Gaza Strip were airdropped by six different countries."
Most observers say that the amount of aid that is entering Gaza is not enough to reverse the course of what the UN has described as mounting evidence of "widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease".
Eight more people, including three children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory's health ministry said.
That took the total to 235, including 106 children, since the war began.
On Tuesday, Australia joined 23 other countries in calling for a "flood" of aid into Gaza, saying the crisis had reached "unimaginable levels".
Further air strikes on 'bloody night' in Gaza
The hunger crisis comes as Israel continues to prepare its offensive to occupy Gaza City, which would displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
More than 120 Palestinians were killed in a "bloody night" of Israeli bombardments, in an assault that could forecast what's soon to come.
Gaza City's second largest hospital, Al-Ahli, said 12 people were killed in an air strike on a home in the neighbourhood of Zeitoun.
"Last night was a bloody night," the hospital's Issam Abu Ajwa told Reuters.
On Wednesday, the IDF said it had approved a framework for the operational plan in the Gaza Strip.
In an appearance on Israeli television on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that Palestinians should leave the enclave altogether.
"They're not being pushed out, they'll be allowed to exit," he said.
"All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us."
The suggestion — one which has previously been raised by US President Donald Trump — has been described by Palestinians as reminiscent of the "Nakba", or "catastrophe" — when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their land during the 1948 war.
Israel's plans to occupy Gaza City, which it has done so before in this war, are expected to be carried out next month or in October.
That leaves several weeks for possible ceasefire negotiations, with Hamas currently holding talks with Egyptian mediators.
ABC/wires
