An aid ship loaded with 200 tons of food is sailing from Cyprus to Gaza, testing a new sea route for delivering aid. World Central Kitchen, a charity founded by famous chef José Andrés, organized the aid. Despite efforts to deliver food by trucks, restrictions, and ongoing hostilities make it nearly impossible to reach those in need.
An aid ship loaded with some 200 tons of food set sail for Gaza on Tuesday in a pilot program for the opening of a sea corridor to the territory, where the five-month-old Israel-Hamas war has driven hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the brink of starvation.
The ship was pulling a barge loaded with nearly 200 metric tons of rice, flour, and other food from World Central Kitchen, a charity group. The ship, provided by the Spanish aid group Open Arms and named after it, is the first authorized to deliver supplies to Gaza by sea since 2005, according to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, which has supported the effort.
The voyage to Gaza takes about 15 hours but a heavy tow barge could considerably lengthen the trip, possibly up to two days. Cyprus, the European Union state closest to the Israel-Hamas war, is just over 200 miles (320 km) northwest of Gaza.
Humanitarian Crises
In January, the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top court, ordered Israel to allow more aid to be delivered to starving civilians in Gaza – a decision aid agencies, governments, and Israeli human rights groups say Israel is ignoring. The EU’s foreign affairs chief has accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.
Aid delivery is still falling far short of the desperate need in Gaza, with the UN warning that famine is “imminent”. In northern Gaza, where aid delivery has been almost non-existent and starvation has become widespread, people are eating grass to survive.
While any increase in aid is welcome, aid workers say, the new sea and air routes distract from the broader issue of Israeli obstruction – and will come too late for many in Gaza, where at least 27 people, mostly children, have already died of starvation or thirst.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says the Israeli offensive launched in response has killed at least 31,185 Palestinians. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said women and children make up around two-thirds of the dead.