Aid boat readied for Gaza as fighting rages
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: A boat carrying desperately needed aid for the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where the United Nations has repeatedly warned of famine, prepared to sail from Cyprus as deadly fighting raged on saturday between Israeli troops and Hamas militants ahead of Ramadan.
The sea route aims to counter access restrictions, which humanitarians and Western governments have blamed on Israel, more than five months into the war, which has left Gaza’s 2.4 million people struggling to survive, particularly in the Palestinian territory’s north.
United States charity World Central Kitchen said it was loading aid onto a boat in Cyprus — the closest European Union member-country to Gaza — in the first shipment along a maritime corridor the EU Commission hoped would open on Sunday.
“Our tugboat stands prepared to embark at a moment’s notice,” said nongovernmental organization Open Arms, a partner in the effort.
With ground access limited, countries have also turned to airdrops of aid. Canada became the latest to say it would join such missions, but a parachute malfunction turned one delivery deadly on Friday. It was not clear which country had undertaken the lethal airdrop.
The Health Ministry in Hamasrun Gaza said three more children died of malnutrition and dehydration, bringing the total of such deaths to now 23.
Another 82 people were killed in strikes the previous day, it added, raising the number of fatalities in Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive of Gaza to 30,960, mostly women and children.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign to destroy Hamas began after the movement’s October 7 attacks on southern Israel resulted in about 1,160 deaths, most of them civilians, Israeli official figures show.
The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) has warned that the volume of aid that can be delivered by sea will do little if anything to stave off famine in Gaza.
Ramadan truce looks ‘tough’
Still, the aid vessel was preparing in the southern Cypriot port of Larnaca.
“World Central Kitchen teams are in Cyprus loading pallets of humanitarian aid onto a boat headed to northern Gaza,” it said in a statement.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who was in Larnaca on Friday, said a “pilot operation” would be launched in partnership with World Central Kitchen, and expressed hope the maritime corridor could open Sunday, supported by aid from the United Arab Emirates. Details remained unclear. Senior US administration officials said an effort announced on Thursday by President Joe Biden for a “temporary pier” to receive aid off Gaza builds upon the maritime corridor proposed by Cyprus.
Biden also acknowledged that hopes for a new truce deal before Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month that could begin on Sunday, depending on the lunar calendar, were “looking tough.”
Humanitarian workers and UN officials say easing the entry of trucks to Gaza would be more effective than aid airdrops or sea shipments.
Five Palestinians were killed and 10 injured by an airdrop in northern Gaza, said Mohammed al-Sheikh, emergency room head nurse at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital.
A witness, Mohammed al-Ghoul, told AFP he and his brother followed the delivery in the hope of getting “a bag of flour,” but when the parachute failed to open, it “fell down like a rocket,” hitting a house.
Jordanian and US military officials denied that aircraft from either country caused the fatalities.
Belgium, Egypt, France and the Netherlands were also involved in the mission.
Canada’s Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen said his country would also partner with Jordan and the WFP for aerial aid delivery.
“We’re looking at a serious risk of mass starvation in parts of Gaza, particularly in the north,” he said.