Spanish aid ship sets sail for Gaza
Urgent bid to stop famine
GAZA STRIP: A Spanish charity ship taking food to Gaza left Cyprus with hopes of opening a maritime corridor to carry sorely needed aid to the warravaged Palestinian territory.
The Open Arms aid boat, which finally set sail from Larnaca port on the Mediterranean on Tuesday local time after days of waiting for the allclear, is part of efforts to diversify aid access into Gaza, as the flow of trucks has slowed.
The UN aid co-ordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, and head of the United Nations Office for Project Services, Jorge Moreira da Silva, said in a joint statement they “welcome the opening of a maritime corridor”, but cautioned it may not be enough to avert a famine.
“For aid delivery at scale there is no meaningful substitute to the many land routes and entry points from Israel into Gaza,” they said.
The war since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel has levelled vast parts of the coastal strip and sparked dire food shortages that have led the UN World Food Program to warn “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told the UN Security Council that “starvation is being used as a war arm”.
“This humanitarian crisis … is man-made,” he said, noting that “the natural way of providing support through roads is being artificially closed.”
The Open Arms is towing a barge loaded with 200 tonnes of relief goods for the sea journey of about 400km, as US charity World Central Kitchen said work was “under way” in Gaza on a jetty to unload the shipment. Cyprus said it was preparing to send a second vessel laden with aid supplies.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, called for a ceasefire “now for the sake of children in Gaza”.
In a post on social media platform X, Mr Lazzarini cited UN and Gaza health ministry figures that suggest more children had been killed in Gaza between October and February “than the number of children killed in four years of wars around the world combined”.
“This war is a war on children,” he said.
Weeks of talks involving US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators failed to bring about a truce and hostage exchange deal before the Ramadan holy month.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said that although talks between the parties continued, “we are not near a deal”.
Meanwhile, China and Russia have joined Iran in naval exercises in the approaches to the Red Sea, in response to the US-led military operation to protect merchant shipping from missile attacks.
Beijing announced that a destroyer, a frigate and a naval supply ship would be deployed with Russian and Iranian counterparts for the exercises in the Gulf of Oman.
The Houthis, an Iranianbacked rebel group that controls northwest Yemen, is attacking Western merchant shipping sailing through the Gulf towards the Red Sea and the Suez Canal as a protest against Israel’s actions in the Gaza war.