AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has allowed desperately needed food and medicine to enter Gaza. The country of Jordan has started a test program to send military helicopters carrying medical aid into Gaza. NPR's Jane Arraf joined the Jordanian military on one of those flights.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLANE ENGINE WHIRRING)
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: At the King Abdullah II air base outside of Amman, helicopter crews are on the tarmac, loading supplies in what has been a test run for getting more aid into Gaza.
They're loading up cardboard boxes into the hold of this Black Hawk helicopter - big Jordanian flags on them. They're carrying medical aid and things like infant formula.
Jordan has been conducting air drops into Gaza for more than a year, but those were pallets with parachutes pushed out of cargo planes, and they didn't always land where they were supposed to.
(SOUNDBITE OF HELICOPTER BLADES SPINNING)
ARRAF: These flights - 16 a day for eight days - are exploring whether landing the aircraft in Gaza and handing supplies over on the ground is a better option. We climb in, sitting on cardboard boxes of medical supplies.
UNIDENTIFIED PILOT: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Cleared for takeoff, the pilot lifts off for the two-hour flight, part of it along the Dead Sea that separates Jordan from Israel.
(SOUNDBITE OF HELICOPTER BLADES SPINNING)
ARRAF: In Israel, we fly over communities with swimming pools, green farm fields, and then crossing into Gaza, there's almost no color.
We've just landed in Gaza - not very far into Gaza, just a few hundred feet beyond the fence. It's part of the buffer zone that Israel has created. There is not another person in sight here, but just down the road, we can see trucks that are presumably waiting to load up with these supplies.
(SOUNDBITE OF HELICOPTER BLADES SPINNING)
ARRAF: It's a very rare glimpse of Gaza on the ground. Local journalists have covered the war at great risk since it began, but Israel, for the most part, bans foreign journalists from here. It takes less than five minutes to unload. Not the easiest or cost-effective way to bring in aid, but with so much need here, Jordan says, still a necessary one. Jane Arraf, NPR News, near Deir al-Balah, Gaza.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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