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As Palestinians brave hunger, aid black market flourishes in Gaza; rice costs 15 times prewar price
Desperate Palestinians are buying resold humanitarian aid in Gaza at exorbitant prices, as deadly conditions around American-backed aid distribution sites force many to rely on black-market goods that were meant to be delivered free of cost.
Traders are reselling items originally distributed by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-backed programme that has operated limited aid points in southern Gaza since May. These sites, set up under Israeli military supervision and managed by American private security contractors, have become both lifelines and danger zones.
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More than 500 people, including children, have been killed while trying to reach aid centres, officials say. Israel's military has admitted that its soldiers have fired on people heading to the sites, claiming they responded when individuals 'approached them in a way they deemed threatening', Financial Times reported.
The perils of accessing the sites have given rise to a brutal economy. 'The strongest people who took, for example, 100 bottles of vegetable oil, go and sell it,' said Ayed Abu Ramadan, head of Gaza's Chamber of Commerce. 'They sell what would have been 10 shekels for 100 shekels. And they come back the next day and repeat the same thing, because they have the physical capacity.'
Markets flooded with aid
On a recent trip to Khan Younis, Save the Children's humanitarian director for Gaza, Rachael Cummings, said she repeatedly saw aid branded with GHF markings being sold. 'The GHF products are in the markets all the time,' she said. 'Every time I drive past a market stall, there are GHF products for sale.'
One such product was potatoes. Mohammad Farra, a father of two, told FT he bought a 5kg bag for 250 shekels ($75), more than 15 times the pre-war price. When he asked the vendor where they came from, the answer was 'the American foundation'.
GHF admitted that resale is occurring but said it had not authorised such trade. 'Under no circumstances was any merchant permitted to sell this aid,' the foundation said. 'All GHF aid is free, always.' But it also acknowledged that once food enters circulation, 'individual resale' is difficult to prevent.
In a pilot project last month, the GHF began giving food parcels directly to merchants to distribute within communities. Merchants were not paid but were reportedly told they could sell part of the supplies as compensation. 'He told me he wants to do a deal. I listened to him, and he said: 'I'll bring trucks in for you, five of them you distribute and five of them you sell',' said Nahed Shohaybr, who heads Gaza's transport industry association. He said he rejected the offer.
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Others did not. Traders and truckers said they received similar requests, with one company owner later attempting to buy aid parcels for his family, only to be told they were already sold.
Rationed survival
The foundation's defenders, including Israeli and American officials, argue that the system prevents Hamas from accessing aid and ensures accountability. But its critics say the current model forces Palestinians into impossible choices. Last week, more than 160 charities condemned the system, arguing it forces people to 'starve or risk being shot'.
University student Osama Saber is among those unwilling to make the dangerous journey to the GHF sites. Instead, he makes daily visits to a local market in Nuseirat camp, where he has seen bags of GHF-distributed tahini, flour, and chocolate spread sold at premium prices. 'So we're forced to buy the goods we know are coming in as humanitarian aid,' he said. 'We're buying it for cash at many times its normal price.'
As aid trickles into Gaza under one of the most tightly controlled and controversial systems in recent history, the lines between relief and exploitation continue to blur with deadly consequences.
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News18
3 hours ago
- News18
Why WTC Towers Couldn't Withstand Air Crash Like Ahmedabad Medical Hostel Did
Last Updated: A deep dive into the reasons of physics, based on the NIST reports on 9/11 and mainstream media reports on the BJ Medical College and Hospital building After the Air India Flight 171 Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 crashed into a medical hostel on 12 June, many wondered how the building could withstand the impact while the twin towers of the World Trade Center couldn't when they were hit by planes flown allegedly by terrorists, which made the towers cave in on 9 September 2001. Is the comparison fair? No. Buildings in American cityscape Earlier, in the comment sections of related social media posts by some friends, the question had been addressed simplistically, stating that the World Trade Center (WTC) towers were designed to collapse at impact so that adjacent buildings could be saved. This was somewhat like the deliberate caving-in design of the much smaller—but big by Indian standards—Supertech twin towers in Noida that were blown up using explosives on 28 August 2022. It was explained that urban America has seen frequent changes in plans, with one generation of planners often finding flaws in the plans of their predecessors. US cities have a history of being built and razed. Considering such an eventuality, the office buildings were made in a way that made demolitions less risky, keeping people in the surroundings out of harm's way. While this is true, other factors explain why the WTC towers could not withstand the impact of one aeroplane flying into each, which the hostel building in Ahmedabad could. The following is a deep dive into all the physical factors (factors of physics). The aircraft for Air India Flight 171 was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, a twin-engine, wide-body jet with a maximum takeoff weight of approximately 2,28,000 kg and a fuel capacity of about 1,26,000 litres. It carried 242 passengers and crew and was fully fuelled for a long-haul flight to London. The crash occurred shortly after takeoff, at low altitude (around 625 feet) and likely below 250 km/h, close to stall speed, which limited its kinetic energy upon impact. In the WTC attacks, the planes were Boeing 767-200ERs (American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175), slightly smaller than the 787, with maximum takeoff weights around 1,79,000 kg. They were travelling at high speeds—approximately 750 km/h (Flight 11) and 950 km/h (Flight 175)—with high kinetic energy. Both planes were also fuelled for transcontinental flights, contributing to large fuel explosions. The factor of kinetic energy calls for further research. The Air India 787-8 crashed at a low speed, as it struggled to gain altitude post-takeoff. Low speed reduces kinetic energy (proportional to the square of velocity) considerably, resulting in less destructive force upon impact. The 767s that hit the WTC were travelling at 4-5 times that speed, delivering exponentially greater kinetic energy. Take a demonstrative example: A plane at 965 km/h has 16 times the kinetic energy of one at 250 km/h, assuming similar mass. This high-energy impact caused extensive structural damage to the WTC towers. The article next explores the construction of the buildings under study in further detail. The hostel at BJ Medical College was a reinforced concrete (RCC) structure, common in India, with thick concrete walls and iron reinforcement. RCC buildings are robust against localised impacts and fires, as concrete has high compressive strength and better fire resistance than steel. The hostel's smaller size and denser construction helped it withstand the crash without collapsing entirely, though it sustained visible damage, including explosions and fires. The WTC towers were steel-framed skyscrapers with a tube-frame design, relying on a dense grid of steel columns in the exterior walls and a central core. Steel loses strength at high temperatures (above 500°C), and the WTC's lightweight fireproofing was dislodged during the impact, exposing steel to intense jet fuel fires (estimated at 800–1,000°C). This weakened critical structural components, leading to progressive collapse. The towers' height (110 storeys) and open floor plans also amplified the collapse dynamics. Dealing with the effects of a devastating fire warrants a deeper study. The 787-8 struck the hostel at a low angle, with its nose up, suggesting a near-stall condition. The impact caused multiple explosions and fires, but the fire's intensity and duration were likely less severe due to the lower kinetic energy and possibly better containment by the concrete structure. The crash killed 241 on board and 19-34 on the ground, indicating significant destruction, but the building's core structure remained partially intact. In the WTC attacks, on the other hand, the 767s struck the towers at high angles, penetrating deep into the structures and damaging multiple floors and core columns. The jet fuel ignited massive fires, exacerbated by office contents (furniture, paper, plastic, etc), which burned for over an hour before collapsing. The combination of impact damage and prolonged high-temperature fires caused the steel framework to buckle, initiating a catastrophic chain reaction. Each tower collapse killed about a thousand, with estimates of 2,606 in the towers and on the ground. The next factor is a deeper dive into the physics of things. The Air India plane hit the hostel at a low angle, as already said, likely skidding across the building or ground, distributing the impact force over a larger area. The hostel's lower height (though a multi-storey building, not a skyscraper) meant less gravitational potential energy to drive a collapse. The WTC planes struck at high angles, with Flight 11 hitting the North Tower (floors 93-99) and Flight 175 hitting the South Tower (floors 77-85). These high-altitude impacts severed critical columns and triggered fires across multiple floors, with the weight of the upper floors contributing to the progressive collapse. Having called the comparison unfair, it raises valid questions about structural resilience and aviation safety. The hostel's ability to remain partially intact suggests that RCC structures may handle low-speed impacts better than steel-framed skyscrapers handle high-speed impacts plus prolonged fires. The WTC collapse was a unique event driven by a combination of factors (impact damage, fire, and design vulnerabilities) not replicated in Ahmedabad. The human, mechanical and external reasons include the differences, such as the Air India crash prompting scrutiny of the Boeing 787's safety, with past whistleblower allegations about manufacturing flaws (e.g., fuselage joint stress, battery fires, etc). However, no definitive cause has been linked to the crash, with investigations focusing on potential dual-engine failure or other technical issues. This contrasts with the WTC, where the cause was deliberate terrorist action, not mechanical failure. Conspiracy theories While Ahmedabad's airport has a history of bird strikes (38 reported in 2022-23), catastrophic dual-engine failure from birds is rare at low altitudes. This probable factor in the Air India crash was irrelevant to the WTC. Whereas some social media posts and discussions may imply scepticism about the WTC's collapse (e.g., questioning why a concrete building survived better), the conspiracy theories (like the 'false flag" theory that posits that the George Bush administration or the American deep state sabotaged the buildings to get an excuse to go after the Osama bin laden-led al Qaeda) often lack engineering context. The WTC's collapse is well-documented by reports of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which attribute it to impact damage and fire, not explosives or other unproven theories. The Air India crash, by contrast, is under active investigation, with no evidence of foul play. What about WTC 7? The explanation of the distinct reasons of physics for one caving in and the other refusing to collapse did not explain how the WTC's Tower 7 fell, which a friend asked. Conspiracy theories abound on that, too, even though the US authorities convincingly ruled them out. World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7) collapsed on 11 September 2001 at 5:20 PM local time, approximately 7 hours after the collapse of the Twin Towers (WTC 1 and WTC 2). Its collapse has been widely studied and is primarily attributed to fire-induced structural failure, as outlined by the NIST in its final report (NCSTAR 1A, 2008), which is presented in brief as follows (even the concise explanation is quite long for a comment and quite important to be allowed to get lost in posterity): Impact Unlike WTC 1 and WTC 2, WTC 7 was not struck by an aeroplane. However, it was badly damaged by debris from the collapse of WTC 1 (the North Tower), located about 113 m away. Falling steel and debris caused large gashes in WTC 7's south face and started multiple fires. Effect of fire Debris from WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7 (most devastatingly on floors 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, and others), fuelled by office contents like furniture, plastic and paper. The fire raged for 7 hours, largely unchecked, as the building's sprinkler system was disabled due to a severed water main from the earlier collapses. Investigation by the NIST found that prolonged fires heated steel beams and floor systems to temperatures exceeding 600°C. This caused thermal expansion of steel beams, particularly on the 13th floor near column 79, in the northeast corner of the building. Thermal expansion pushed a critical girder off its seat at column 79, triggering a local floor collapse. This initiated a progressive failure, as unsupported floors above collapsed, overloading column 79. Aggravated by diesel storage WTC 7 contained large diesel fuel tanks for emergency generators, raising initial concerns about their role in the fires. The NIST concluded that while diesel fuel may have contributed to fire intensity, it was not the primary cause of collapse. The fires were primarily sustained by office combustibles. Debris damage from WTC 1 included a 10-storey gash on the south face, which weakened the structure but did not directly cause the collapse. Distinct design caused different styles of collapse WTC 7 was a 47-storey steel-framed building with a trapezium-like design, completed in 1987. It used a core of steel columns surrounded by perimeter columns, connected by floor trusses. The building housed critical systems like emergency power for New York City's Office of Emergency Management. A key structural feature was the long-span floor systems, particularly around columns 79, 80 and 81, which supported large open office spaces. These long spans made the structure vulnerable to fire-induced failure if key columns were compromised. The long-span floor design and lack of fire suppression were sufficient to cause the collapse, as validated by the NIST's computer models and peer-reviewed studies. The failure of column 79, a critical vertical support, led to a cascading collapse of adjacent columns (80 and 81). This created an internal collapse of the east side of the building. The loss of these columns caused the remaining structure to buckle, resulting in a near-free-fall collapse of the entire building. The collapse took approximately 6.5 seconds, with the first 1.75 seconds at free-fall acceleration due to the rapid failure of the lower structure. The brief free-fall phase (1.75 s) occurred because the lower exterior columns buckled rapidly after the internal structure collapsed, not because of explosives. Why WTC 7 needed a separate explanation WTC 7's collapse thus provides additional context to the comparison between a Boeing Dreamliner hitting the Ahmedabad medical hostel building and one smaller plane hitting each of the WTC twin towers. WTC 7's collapse being caused by fire and debris, not a direct plane impact, also makes it a poor comparison to the hostel, which withstood a low-energy crash due to its robust concrete construction, which was why mentioning this WTC tower would have breached the context of an earlier explanation. On the one hand, similar to the caving in of the WTC Twin Towers, WTC 7's collapse involved fire weakening the steel. On the other hand, the absence of an aircraft impact meant less initial structural damage. The hostel's concrete structure was more fire-resistant than WTC 7's steel framework, which lost strength at high temperatures. WTC 7's progressive collapse, initiated by a single column failure, contrasts with the WTC twin towers' top-down collapse driven by massive impact damage and fires. The hostel's partial survival likely reflects its smaller size and denser construction, unlike WTC 7's tall, open steel design. NIST demolished conspiracy theories WTC 7's collapse has been a focal point for conspiracy theories that claim it was a controlled demolition due to its rapid, symmetrical fall. The NIST and engineering experts refute this. The NIST found no evidence of sounds of blasts, seismic signals or explosive residues consistent with demolition. top videos View all The collapse's symmetry was due to the uniform failure of the steel framework after column 79's buckling. The author is a senior journalist and writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. tags : 9/11 Ahmedabad Air India Air India crash boeing plane crash World Trade Center view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: July 11, 2025, 20:23 IST News opinion Opinion | Why WTC Towers Couldn't Withstand Air Crash Like Ahmedabad Medical Hostel Did Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Mint
4 hours ago
- Mint
How UK, US & global media are reacting to Air India AI171 crash report
India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has released its preliminary report on the tragic crash of Air India flight AI171, a Boeing 787-8, which went down shortly after taking off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad on June 12. The disaster claimed 260 lives, including 229 passengers, 12 crew members, and 19 individuals on the ground. According to the report, a devastating chain of events unfolded just 90 seconds after takeoff, when both engines unexpectedly shut down during the aircraft's initial ascent, resulting in a sudden loss of thrust and a rapid descent. CNN, a US-based news channel, said, 'engine fuel supply was cut just before India jet crash.' CNN further reported on the technical aspect of the crash, quoting safety analyst David Soucie, who noted that the fuel switches were 'designed to be intentionally moved,' saying that instances where 'all fuel switches were turned off accidentally are extremely rare.' Credit: CNN. BBC echoed, "Fuel switches cut off before Air India crash that killed 260, preliminary report says," while also noting that the 'cause of the plane crash remains unsolved.' Credit: BBC. The Telegraph led with the headline, 'Air India pilot asked why fuel had been cut off moments before fatal crash.' Source: Telegraph. The New York Times provided a deeper analysis of the report's findings, including procedural errors, cockpit communication, and systemic safety questions. The headline reads, 'Fuel to Air India plane was cut off before crash.' However, the paper noted that the full picture is still emerging. Source: New York Times. The Financial Times said, 'Fuel to Air India 171's engines was cut off seconds before fatal crash.' Source: Financial Times. The Guardian took a similar angle with its headline: 'Engine fuel switches cut off before Air India crash that killed 260, preliminary report finds.' Source: The Guardian. Al Jazeera reported that 'Fuel control switches to the engines of an Air India flight that crashed shortly after takeoff last month were moved from the 'run' to the 'cutoff' position moments before impact,' citing details from the preliminary report. Source: Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera also pointed out a key gap in the investigation, noting that "the preliminary report does not say how the switch could have flipped to the cutoff position" on the London-bound flight departing from Ahmedabad. Metro, the British freesheet tabloid, placed responsibility on the cockpit crew with the headline: 'Air India plane crash investigation focuses on 'mistake' made by pilots.' Credit: Metro. The outlet also noted, 'The airline (Air India) has in recent times worked to turn around its operations after decades under state ownership. The Dreamliner is used on international, long-haul routes and has an excellent safety record until the Air India crash. It comes at a time when Boeing is trying to recover from a string of safety and quality problems.' The AAIB team, in coordination with investigators from the NTSB (USA), Boeing, GE, FAA, and safety agencies from the UK, Portugal, and Canada (whose citizens were among the victims), is continuing detailed analysis of cockpit recordings, engine components, maintenance records, and pilot actions. At this stage of the investigation, the report reads "there are no recommended actions to B787-8 and/or GE GEnx-1B engine operators and manufacturers."
Hans India
5 hours ago
- Hans India
Paper Bag Day: A day to rethink everyday choices
Every year on 12 July, Paper Bag Day is observed to highlight the environmental significance of using paper bags and to acknowledge the humble yet revolutionary invention that continues to make a difference in the daily lives. The day honours the innovation of Francis Wolle, an American schoolteacher who, in 1852, invented the first machine to mass-produce paper bags—an invention that would later become essential in the global movement toward sustainable packaging. Paper bags, once overshadowed by the convenience of plastic, have seen a resurgence as the world confronts the ecological damage caused by plastic waste. Lightweight, biodegradable, and recyclable, paper bags present a more eco-friendly alternative for consumers and businesses alike. As plastic bans continue to be enforced across various regions in India and beyond, paper bags are once again gaining favour—not just as a practical item, but as a symbol of conscious consumption. However, Paper Bag Day is not just about switching materials; it is about rethinking therelationship with single-use items altogether. While paper bags are less harmful than plastic, their production still involves resource use, including water and trees. The true message of the day lies in responsible use, reduction, and reuse, encouraging supporting eco-conscious practices, and educating communities about waste management.
