Video does not show China recently airdropping aid to Gaza

A video which has been shared over 8,000 times with claims it depicts an air aid drop by China is misleading.

The clip, which is circulating on Facebook, was shared on 17 May with the caption: “This is not Saudi Arabia’s 600 Billion This is not Qatar’s 1.2 Trillion This is not UAE’s 1.4 Trillion This is china dropping air aids today [sic].”

In the video, large parachutes can be seen falling from the sky attached to crates, while a large number of people on the ground run to retrieve them.

Although neither the caption nor the overlaid text specifies where aid is being dropped, many accounts in the comments reference Gaza or Palestinians. The parachutes seem to be identical to those seen in other videos of humanitarian aid being airdropped into Gaza.

The same video was also shared on X (formerly Twitter) on 17 May with claims it showed China dropping food and medical supplies into Gaza.

However, this footage does not show China delivering aid through air drops last month.

The same clip has been circulating online since at least September 2024, when it was shared on TikTok with a description stating that it showed the “situation in northern Gaza in obtaining aid”. Full Fact has not been able to verify when or where exactly the video was taken.

As we have previously written, we have found no credible reports that China has been delivering aid by air during the 11-week Israeli blockade, which was recently eased to allow a limited amount of food and aid into Gaza.

Aid distribution centres in Gaza run by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a controversial US and Israel-backed aid network, were closed on 4 June, following a number of shootings on the roads to the sites, and only two centres were reportedly operating on Thursday, 5 June.

Air aid drops from other countries, including the US, UK, Jordan, France, Germany, Indonesia, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, did take place between March and May 2024, but we’ve not found any reports of these having involved China.

China announced in February earlier this year—before the blockade began on 2 March—that it would deliver 60,000 food parcels through Jordan, which according to Chinese media reports, was to be transported over land borders and not by air.

We have previously fact checked other videos of aid being air dropped via similar parachutes as well as aeroplanes in flight which have been shared with misleading claims that China was responsible. And similar claims about other images or videos supposedly showing China airdropping aid have been debunked by other fact checkers.

Before sharing content like this that you see gaining traction on social media, first consider whether it comes from a trustworthy and reliable source and really depicts what it is claimed to show. Our guide to spotting misleading videos can help you do this.

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