Aid ship arrives in Gaza via newly created sea route, Israeli military says
Palestinian enclave in hunger crisis amid war, Israeli border restrictions
A ship delivered 181 tonnes (200 tons) of humanitarian supplies, food and water to the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Israeli military said, inaugurating a sea route from Cyprus for aid to help ease the humanitarian crisis brought by Israel's five-month-old offensive in the enclave.
Israel has been under increasing pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, especially in the Palestinian territory's isolated north — where hunger is at its worst, with many people reduced to eating animal feed and weeds. The United States has joined other countries in airdropping supplies into northern Gaza and has announced separate plans to construct a pier to get aid into the territory.
Aid groups said the airdrops and sea shipments are far less efficient than trucks in delivering the massive amounts of aid needed. Instead, the groups have called on Israel to guarantee safe corridors for truck convoys after land deliveries became nearly impossible because of military restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of order after the Hamas-run police force largely vanished from the streets.
The ship, operated by the Spanish aid group Open Arms, left Cyprus on Tuesday towing a barge laden with food, including rice, flour, lentils, beans, tuna and canned meat. The food was sent by World Central Kitchen, a charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, which operates kitchens providing free meals in Gaza.
Throughout the day Friday, the ship could be seen off Gaza's coast. In the evening, the military said its cargo had been unloaded onto 12 trucks. Grainy footage released by the military showed a truck on a pier approaching the barge.
Update from Gaza🎥 WCK is offloading almost 200 tons of rice, flour, proteins & more that arrived by sea earlier today. At the same time this shipment is transported ashore, our second vessel is preparing to set sail from Cyprus with hundreds more tons of food. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChefsForThePeople?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ChefsForThePeople</a> <a href="https://t.co/cHacgMJQ6c">pic.twitter.com/cHacgMJQ6c</a>
—@WCKitchenThe food is to be distributed in the north, the largely devastated target of Israel's initial offensive in Gaza, where up to 300,000 Palestinians are believed to remain, mostly cut off by Israeli forces since October.
The delivery is intended to pave the way for larger shipments. A second vessel will head to Gaza once the supplies on the first ship are distributed, said Constantinos Kombos, the foreign affairs minister of Cyprus. Its timing depends in part on whether the Open Arms delivery goes smoothly, he said.
The Israel-Hamas war was triggered by an Oct. 7 attack led by Hamas militants on southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken into Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's offensive in Hamas-controlled Gaza has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians and driven most of Gaza's 2.3 million people from their homes, Gaza's Health Ministry says. A quarter of Gaza's population is starving, according to the United Nations. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
The Health Ministry accused Israeli forces late Thursday of attacking Palestinians waiting for an aid convoy at a distribution point in northern Gaza, killing at least 20 people and wounding 155. At Al-Shifa Hospital, doctors said the casualties were mostly hit by live fire, with some showing signs of being crushed.
The Israeli military denied its forces fired at civilians or the convoy. In a statement, it said Palestinian gunmen opened fire among the crowd and that some were run over by the trucks. Aerial footage released by the military appeared to show only one man pushing and shoving people.
Bloodshed surrounding an aid convoy on Feb. 29 killed 118 Palestinians in northern Gaza, when the Israeli military said its forces fired at people in the crowd who were advancing toward them and that tanks fired warning shots to disperse them. Witnesses and hospital officials said many of the casualties suffered bullet wounds.
Military officials initially blamed many of the deaths on a stampede; a later military command review said only that the stampede caused "significant harm," without addressing the cause of the deaths.
After that, plans for the sea route took shape, and the U.S. and other countries joined Jordan in dropping aid into the north by plane.
But people in northern Gaza say the airdrops cannot meet the vast need. Many can't access the aid because people are fighting over it, said Suwar Baroud, 24, who was displaced by the fighting and is now in Gaza City. Some people hoard it and sell it in the market, she said.
A recent airdrop that malfunctioned plummeted from the sky and killed five people.
Another landed in a sewage and garbage dump, said Riham Abu al-Bid. Men ran in but were unable to retrieve anything, she said.
"I wish these airdrops never happened and that our dignity and freedom would be taken into consideration, so we can get our sustenance in a dignified way and not in a manner that is so humiliating," she said.
On average, about 115 supply trucks a day have entered Gaza over the entire course of the war, according to figures released by the Israeli prime minister's office — far below the average of 500 a day before Oct. 7 — though on some days the number spikes to above 200.
This week, Israel began allowing trucks to enter directly into the north, a step aid groups have long called for. The military has also been arranging private commercial convoys and says more than 300 trucks — mainly private — have entered the north since the beginning of February.