Humanitarian aid ship offloads aid for northern Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestine

A humanitarian aid ship on Friday arrived at the shores of northern Gaza and started to offload an aid shipment, the first in a planned series of such shipments.

The shipment is a test for a sea route from the Port of Larnaca, in the Greek Cypriot administration, to Gaza to supply aid to Palestinians under international supervision, including the US and the EU.

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that small boats started to offload the aid from the ship, called Open Arms, and transferred it to the Gaza City shore.

Jose Andres, a chef of the World Central Kitchen charity group, said on X: "Today @WCKitchen is reaching 37 million meals in Gaza."

He added "On the same day that we hoped to finish our Jetty and download 200 tons on a pilot test before bad weather. So far 2 crates already delivered from the @openarms_fund barge. But still more to do next few hours…"

No information was provided on how the aid will be distributed.

Work is ongoing to build a temporary pier off Gaza to receive humanitarian supplies for the besieged enclave.

Land route blocked

World Central Kitchen on Tuesday said Open Arms set sail from Larnaca to Gaza, as the first sea trip of the humanitarian maritime corridor to deliver aid to Gazans.

The group that the shipment contains some 200 tons of food, including rice, flour, canned food, and more.

The maritime corridor is a new mechanism to deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza, as Israel still refuses to open land crossings with Gaza.

Israel has waged an offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. The offensive has killed over 31,000 victims and injured more than 73,000 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Palestinian enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced by the Israeli onslaught amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar and Necva Tastan