For the first time, food reaches the Gaza Strip by sea – 2024-03-17 01:43:21

A first ship carrying humanitarian aid has begun unloading tons of food in the Gaza Strip as part of a bid to prevent residents from starving as negotiations resume for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Hamas Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kudra announced early today that 36 people, including women and children, were killed when a house where forcibly displaced people had been crammed was shelled in Nuseirat (central).

A total of 123 people have been killed throughout the Palestinian enclave since last night, according to him.

The Palestinian Islamist movement, which has until now demanded a permanent ceasefire before any deal to free hostages held by its military arm in the Gaza Strip, has said it is willing to strike a six-week ceasefire deal, during which 42 hostages—women, children, the elderly and the sick—will be exchanged for 20 to 50 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

But for this he demands the “withdrawal” of the Israeli army “from all cities and populated areas”, the “return of the displaced without restrictions” and the entry of at least 500 trucks with humanitarian aid into the enclave every day, his official told AFP.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, for his part, said that the mediating countries are working “non-stop to close the gap” that remains in order to conclude an agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, for its part, while insisting that Hamas continues to make unrealistic demands, said it would send a delegation to Qatar as part of the exchange negotiations, without specifying when. The White House said it was “moderately optimistic” about the outcome of the negotiations.

In addition to the shelling and fighting, the UN fears widespread famine in the besieged Palestinian enclave, especially in the north, where access is very difficult. Aid arriving by land routes enters the Gaza Strip after being inspected by Israel mainly in the south, at Rafah, but its quantity is completely insufficient to meet the needs of the 2.4 million inhabitants.

Hence the race against time to distribute more aid to the northern Gaza Strip with airdrops and the new sea corridor from Cyprus.

Unloading

A ship chartered by the Spanish NGO Open Arms, which left Cyprus on Tuesday with 200 tons of food supplied by the American NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK), arrived yesterday at a floating dock where it was unloaded yesterday from afternoon to evening.

“WKC unloads nearly 200 tonnes of rice, flour, protein and more, which arrived by sea earlier. At the same time as this cargo is being unloaded, our second ship is preparing to leave Cyprus with hundreds of tons of additional food,” the American NGO said with satisfaction via X (the former Twitter).

“Despite the darkness and difficulties, the work does not stop in Gaza to unload WCK’s 200 tons of food (…) We hope that this corridor we are opening today will be a road parallel to the land ones to relieve hunger and suffering” of Gazans, Open Arms bid.

“I want (help) for my children. I want them to live and not starve to death. They eat nothing but weeds, there is no bread either — there is no bread, there is nothing to eat in Gaza. It is the month of Ramadan and there is nothing,” said Abu Isa Ibrahim Filfil, a Palestinian who went to watch the ship’s arrival.

However, the UN, EU, US and others have acknowledged in recent days that airdrops and sea transport cannot replace land routes.

And although the Open Arms ship was able to reach the Gaza Strip, where there is no cargo port, to unload, it underwent a “full security check” beforehand, said the Israeli military, which has since October 9 under absolute siege of the enclave.

The war broke out on October 7, triggered by an unprecedented raid by Hamas’ military arm against southern sectors of Israeli territory that left more than 1,160 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on in official Israeli data.

According to Israeli sources, 130 hostages are still in the Gaza Strip — but at least 32 of them are believed to be dead — out of the more than 250 abducted that day.

In retaliation, Israel vowed to “eliminate” Hamas, which it, like the US and the EU, describes as a “terrorist” organization, and the Israeli military’s operations since then have killed at least 31,490 people in the Strip. Gaza, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.

Business in Rafa?

This war has further raised the tension in the occupied Palestinian territories, where faithful Muslims yesterday participated in the first major prayer since the start of Ramadan on Monday.

In Jerusalem, tens of thousands of worshipers gathered without incident in the Square of the Mosques under heavy police watch, while in Gaza, residents gathered to pray amid the rubble.

“We gathered in the ruins of our destroyed mosque. This year Ramadan is completely different, because of the martyrs, the wounded, the lack of food,” said Baker Abu Giran, displaced in Rafah.

Although negotiations continue, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday approved the army’s “operational plans” ahead of a ground operation in Rafah, where, according to the UN, some 1.5 million Palestinians are concentrated. The operation may begin immediately if a cease-fire agreement is not reached, or if there is a truce, after the six weeks have passed.

“The Israeli army is ready for the operational side and for the immediate evacuation of the population,” according to its services, which gave no further details on the operation, which has been announced for some time and which Mr Netanyahu insists will go ahead. , despite US and UN warnings.

“We would not support a plan that did not take into account one and a half million Palestinians,” he