First aid shipment to arrive by sea set to be delivered
The first shipment of aid to reach the Gaza Strip by sea in almost two decades was unloaded from a makeshift jetty and was to be distributed by truck throughout the enclave, in a step that Western officials hope will pave the way for a maritime corridor to deliver supplies to suffering civilians in Gaza.
The ship, the Open Arms, had towed a barge loaded with rice, flour, lentils, and canned tuna, beef, and chicken, supplied by the World Central Kitchen charity, across the Mediterranean from Cyprus.
“The Open Arms connected a barge filled with almost 200 tons of food to the WCK built jetty on the coast of Gaza,” the charity said in a statement, referring to a jetty it constructed out of rubble at the Gaza coastline. “All cargo was offloaded.”
The supplies will be dispatched by truck, including in Gaza’s north, said José Andrés, a renowned Spanish American chef who founded the World Central Kitchen. It was not clear who was operating the trucks and who would provide security for them, and Andrés would not elaborate.
Safely distributing food where it is needed is a pressing challenge in Gaza, especially in the north, which is particularly troubled by insecurity, lawlessness, and roads damaged by Israeli airstrikes. Signs of desperate hunger are growing as people resort to consuming animal feed or ambushing aid trucks.
UN aid groups had to largely suspend deliveries in northern Gaza last month, and for at least the second time in just over two weeks, a convoy bringing aid there ended in bloodshed late Thursday when Palestinians were killed and wounded in an attack surrounding the trucks, according to Gaza health officials and the Israeli military.
The Open Arms is the first vessel authorized to deliver aid to Gaza since 2005, according to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union’s executive arm, who has described the operation as a pilot project for a so-called maritime corridor for supplies to the territory.
With Gaza under a nearly total blockade and having undergone more than five months of Israeli bombardment, much of the enclave is at risk of famine, the United Nations has warned. Aid officials have emphasized that delivering aid by sea is far less efficient than by truck and have called on Israel to open more land crossings into Gaza and ease restrictions.
World Central Kitchen is preparing to send a second boat with food aid from the Cypriot port of Larnaca, the charity said, but it was not clear when it would set sail. The second ship is equipped with two forklifts and a crane to assist with future maritime deliveries and has a cargo of 240 tons of food, including carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, corn, rice, flour, oil, and salt, as well as more than 250 pounds of fresh dates donated by the United Arab Emirates.
Last week, President Biden announced an American-led initiative to establish a temporary floating pier off Gaza’s coast to facilitate the transit of goods. US officials hope to use the pier to enable the delivery of 2 million meals a day for Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Since October, organizers and Palestinian cooks working with World Central Kitchen have served more than 37 million meals in Gaza, according to the group.