A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Israel and Hamas are maintaining a fragile ceasefire in Gaza.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
That has allowed more food and medicine to enter the Palestinian territory that's been devastated by more than a year of war. It's still not enough, according to aid officials. Jordan has begun helping out, delivering medical supplies via what it refers to as an air bridge flying helicopters to land inside Gaza.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Jane Arraf went on a recent flight. She joins us from Amman. Jane, so Jordan has carried out a lot of aid airdrops throughout the war in Gaza. What's different about these latest efforts?
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Well, those were part of multinational efforts that dropped aid from the air on pallets with parachutes. Some of them ended up in the sea, and there was always the danger of those heavy pallets landing on people. So these flights - 16 a day over 18 days - have actually landed in Gaza, although on the outskirts, which makes the aid much more targeted.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Now, tell us about the flight you took. I mean, what were the aircrafts carrying?
ARRAF: They were Black Hawk helicopters, and they were loaded with cardboard boxes containing anesthesia drugs, antibiotics and other medications. They also contained things like disposable diapers and infant formula. So the helicopters can carry only a fraction of the capacity of a truck, and they are much more expensive. These airlifts are still subject to Israeli regulations, but Jordanian aid officials say they can get medicine into Gaza this way much more reliably and much faster.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. What else did you see?
ARRAF: Well, we took off from an air base about an hour from Amman and flew along the Dead Sea, then into Israel. In Israel, you can see built-up communities and green fields, and then it's a very stark difference when you cross over into Gaza. From the air, we could see skeletons of buildings hit by Israeli airstrikes and others in rubble. And in the distance, there was that Mediterranean coastline. So, A, we landed just within Israel's buffer zone in Gaza, not far from the city of Deir al-Balah. And it was a very rare glimpse of Gaza, even that limited view, because Gaza journalists have been reporting from there at great risk from the start, but Israel, for the most part, bans foreign news organizations from Gaza.
MARTÍNEZ: Jane, before we get to President Trump and who he's going to meet this week, I mean, how was it just to see everything from the air? I mean, it's one thing to have a grounds-eye view, but then to have this overview like you had, what was that like?
ARRAF: It was really surreal because you don't see anything living in that part of Deir al-Balah, which has been heavily hit. I mean, really, it - from what we were seeing, it was just rubble. And it's important to note that Israel prevented us, according to the Jordanian authorities, from taking photographs on the ground of what we were seeing. The only thing we could take photos of once we landed were the buffer zone and the helicopter. But to actually see it real, in real life, was really unreal.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, President Trump last week announced that he wanted to relocate Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan and Egypt. Jordan's king, Abdullah, is arriving in the United States for talks with President Trump tomorrow. How are those talks expected to go?
ARRAF: Those are going to be tough. That coveted coastline that Trump officials have their eye on is Palestinian territory, and Jordan sees the plan as an existential threat. So Jordan is a key ally and security partner, and it's made clear it would see Israel trying to relocate more Palestinians here as a breach of their peace treaty and a declaration of war.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Jane Arraf in Amman. Jane, thank you.
ARRAF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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