Second batch of aid leaves for Gaza from Cyprus
Charities respond after World Court finds famine is no longer just a risk but has set in
● A second shipment of aid carrying almost 400 tons of food for Gaza left Cyprus’s Larnaca port yesterday. The aid will be taken to Gaza by a cargo ship and a platform towed by a salvage vessel.
It will be the second dispatch of aid via Cyprus, where Cypriot authorities have established, in co-operation with Israel, a maritime corridor to facilitate pre-screened cargoes arriving directly in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
US-based charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) arranged the mission with Spain’s Open Arms charity, with financing mainly from the United Arab Emirates and support from Cypriot authorities.
On its first mission earlier in March, it built a makeshift jetty from rubble to enable the offloading of almost 200 tons of food in the enclave, which does not have any port facilities. Yesterday’s dispatch includes two forklifts and a crane to assist with future marine deliveries.
Separately, the US plans to construct a floating pier off Gaza to receive aid.
The target date for completion is May 1, but it could be ready by around April 15, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said late on Friday.
The UN has warned that famine is imminent in the northern Gaza Strip, where 300,000 people are trapped by fighting. Across the whole of the enclave more than half its population of 2.3-million people could face famine by July.
The US in recent days has authorised the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, two sources familiar with the effort said on Friday, even as Washington publicly expresses concerns about an expected Israeli military offensive in Rafah.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, said the sources, who confirmed a report in the Washington Post. Washington gives $3.8bn in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally.
The package comes as Israel faces strong international criticism over its continued bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza and as some members of President Joe Biden’s party call for him to cut US military aid. The US has been rushing air defence systems and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab-American groups have criticised the Biden administration’s steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity.
Biden on Friday acknowledged “the pain being felt” by many Arab Americans over the war in Gaza and over US support for Israel and its military offensive. Still, he has vowed continued support for Israel despite an increasingly public rift with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House declined to comment on the weapons transfers. The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The World Court on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel, accused by South Africa of genocide in Gaza, to take all necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies to the enclave’s Palestinian population and halt spreading famine.
But Gaza’s Hamas rulers said a ceasefire was needed to halt the humanitarian crisis. The order from the International Court of Justice came as Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters battled in close combat around Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital, where the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they attacked Israeli soldiers and tanks with rockets and mortar fire.
Judges at the court said the people in the coastal enclave face worsening conditions. “The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (...) but that famine is setting in,” the judges said in their order.
The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said the ruling did not go far enough and Israel must be ordered to end its military offensive to halt the suffering.
“We welcome any new demands to end this humanitarian tragedy in Gaza and especially in the northern Gaza Strip, but we hoped the court ordered a ceasefire as an absolute solution to all the miseries our people in Gaza are living through,” Naim said.
The UN Security Council voted on Tuesday to demand an immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
The US abstained from, but did not veto, the vote.
There was no immediate comment from Israel’s foreign ministry on the World Court ruling. But Israel has said it is making efforts to expand access for humanitarian groups to Gaza overland, through airdrops and by ship.
Israeli leaders have said Hamas can end the war by surrendering, freeing all hostages it holds in Gaza and handing over for trial those involved in the October 7 attack.
The Israeli army said it continued to operate around the Al Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City after storming it more than a week ago. Its forces had killed around 200 gunmen since the start of the operation “while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment”, it said.
In a televised statement, chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said troops operating at the hospital killed Raed Thabet, a Hamas quartermaster whom he described as one of the group’s 10 most senior members.
Gaza’s health ministry said wounded people and patients were being held inside an administration building in Al Shifa that was not equipped to provide them with health care. Five patients had died since the Israeli raid began due to shortages of food, water and medical care, the Hamas-run ministry said.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza Hamas-run government media office, said the Israeli army was carrying out “field killings and executions against hundreds of civilians”, when asked about the army statement.
“Everyone inside the Shifa complex are civilians, and there are no military personnel inside the compound” he said.
Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital before the war, had been one of the few health-care facilities even partially operational in north Gaza before the latest fighting. It had also been housing displaced civilians.
We welcome any new demands to end this humanitarian tragedy in Gaza and especially in the northern Gaza Strip, but we hoped the court ordered a ceasefire as an absolute solution to all the miseries our people in Gaza are living through Basem Naim Senior Hamas official