As the UN stepped up its warnings about a possible famine and starvation deaths in the Gaza strip, a ship with humanitarian aid is likely to leave for Gaza from Cyprus Saturday using a newly opened shipping route.
Open Arms, a ship belonging to a Spanish charity with the same name, will tow a barge loaded with 200 tonnes of food provided by US charity World Central Kitchen, according to the charity’s founder Oscar Camps. The ship, likely to leave Cyprus’ Larnaca port this weekend, will take around two to three days to reach an undisclosed location off the Gaza coast, Camps told the Associated Press. The final mile of the 216 nautical miles journey would be “the most complicated operation,” he said, adding that a team from the World Central Kitchen, which runs 60 kitchens throughout Gaza, was building a pier for the boat and barge to dock.
The new maritime corridor was announced by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen during her trip to Cyprus on Friday. A day earlier, US President Joe Biden used his State of the Nation address to announce plans to build a temporary floating port on the Gaza coast. The port, to be built by about a 1000 US soldiers operating from ships and boats, could take two months to complete, and be capable of receive large ships with humanitarian aid. Initial shipments will arrive via Larnaca, after inspection by Israeli officials.
With Israeli troops sealing off and restricting access to and from the strip since the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, aid delivery by road has become almost impossible. On February 29, at least 112 hungry Palestinians were killed and 750 injured when Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd mobbing an aid convoy. In Gaza city. Intermittent air drops have also been less than successful, with reports that five people died on Friday after an aid package with a faulty parachute dropped on them.
Last week, the UN warned that at least 576,000 people, including women and children across the Gaza Strip face severe food insecurity and acute malnutrition. While welcoming the new initiatives, aid organisations said time was of the essence, and urged Israel to open up more land routes.
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