Gazans watch the skies to spot aid planes 

Feeding Gaza is now a complex, risky, multi-national operation. The RAF carried out its first two aid flights this week. France, Germany, Jordan, Egypt and the UAE have also been taking part.

Earlier this week, 12 people are thought to have drowned while trying to retrieve aid parcels that fell into the sea. Another six were reportedly crushed in the stampede to reach it.

This was the 18th mission flown by US forces. Dropping 40,000 ready-prepared meals into the tiny, besieged war-zone requires them to make a six-hour round trip from Doha.

One thousand miles east of Gaza, large blocks of aid are being loaded on to a US military transport plane, its crew silhouetted by the morning sun glancing over the desert landscape around Qatar’s Al-Udeid airbase.

They push 80 crates into the plane’s cavernous interior, each canvas-wrapped block strapped to a cardboard pallet and topped with a parachute.

It is more expensive and less efficient than other ways of delivering aid and it is also harder to control.

“We’re very aware of all the news, and we’re trying to limit casualties,” said Maj. Boone, the mission commander, standing beneath a large American flag at the entrance to the cockpit.