Wrote: Festim Rizanaj
In recent days, videos have been shared on social media claiming that China "broke" the Israeli blockade of Gaza in May 2025 and sent humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population.
The videos released claim that Chinese planes have penetrated the blockade and dropped food aid to children in Gaza. The footage is from several different recordings, showing planes flying in formation or dropping packages by parachute. (here, here, here, here, here)
The truth?
After conducting online research, it was determined that these claims are untrue. In reality, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip remains critical and there is no evidence to support direct Chinese intervention in the form depicted in these videos.
This claim on social media began to spread at a time when Israel had block any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza for three months, putting millions of people at risk of starvation.
Although China, as many other places, it has CONVICTED Israel's humanitarian aid blockade of Gaza, there is no evidence that it has actually broken the blockade and provided humanitarian aid. Chinese institutions they have not notified that they have done such a thing, or that they intend to do so, and neither the world nor the Palestinian media have reported on it. Furthermore, when searching in English on Google for the claim that China has “broken” the Israeli aid blockade, a number of articles fact checker that refute this appear among the first results (here).
regardless of critical attitude China's response to the Israeli blockade and obstacles to humanitarian aid in Gaza, there is no evidence that it has broken this blockade or taken concrete actions to send aid. Chinese authorities have not no official announcement for such an intervention, and neither the international nor Palestinian media have reported on any such humanitarian operation by China. In fact, a simple Google search in English for claims that China has “broken” the Israeli blockade brings up fact-checking articles that refute these claims (here).
After verification, it turns out that the footage shared on social media claiming to show "aid distribution from China to Gaza" is earlier footage related to completely different events. One of the videos, which shows planes flying in a triangular formation, actually documents a joint military exercise between China and Egypt, held in early May 2025. During this exercise, the air force planes of both countries flew over the city of Giza in Egypt. In fact, in some of the images published with the claim that China has "broken" the Israeli blockade, the Pyramids of Giza are clearly visible, which clearly shows that they have no connection with Gaza or any humanitarian operation there.
Videos that show aid packages being parachuted from airplanes are not new and are not related to any operation carried out by China in May 2025. They document previous humanitarian actions in Gaza, carried out by various countries during 2024. In particular, a large part of these videos belong to a joint air aid operation undertaken by the United States of America and Jordan in March 2024.
According to reporting of The Guardian, a sheet of paper found in one of the air-dropped aid packages had a message printed in Arabic set against a background of the American flag – a clear indication that the aid had been sent from the United States.
This can be seen both from the visual appearance of the parachutes and aid packages, and from the consistency of some frames in the viral Facebook video with official footage documented during that operation. (here)
On March 2, 2025, Israel imposed a complete humanitarian blockade on the Gaza Strip, which lasted for three months. During this period, some 2.1 million Gazans – most of them children – faced extreme food shortages and the risk of starvation. Only on May 19, 2025, for the first time in three months, humanitarian aid was allowed to enter the territory, but only symbolically: Israel allowed only five trucks with aid to pass. The United Nations humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, described this as a "drop in the ocean" compared to the large and urgent needs of the population, emphasizing that it is vital to allow the entry of aid on a much larger scale.
Analyze:
Several videos were shared claiming that China had broken the Israeli blockade of Gaza and sent humanitarian aid.
In reality, there is no evidence to support these claims; the videos released contain footage from previous events that are unrelated to any real humanitarian intervention by China in Gaza.
Based on the working methodology, these claims are assessed as "disinformation".
Reasoning:
"Disinformation" is defined as information content that contains a "mix" of inaccurate sources or even half-truthful attributes, and that is created and/or distributed with the deliberate intention of causing harm. The motive behind the producers/distributors of disinformation content lies in achieving a political, financial, psychological or social goal.