First ship to use new sea route approaches Gaza with vital aid

A ship carrying 200 tons of aid is approaching the coast of Gaza in a mission to establish a sea route from Cyprus that is intended to bring more assistance to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

The ship, manned by the Spanish aid group Open Arms, left Cyprus on Tuesday towing a barge laden with food sent by World Central Kitchen, the charity founded by celebrity chef Jose Andres.

It could be seen off Gaza’s coast on Friday morning.

Israel has been under increasing pressure to allow more aid into Gaza after five months of war between Israel and Hamas.

The United States has joined other countries in airdropping supplies to the isolated region of northern Gaza and has announced separate plans to construct a pier to bring in aid.

Aid groups said the airdrops and sea shipments are far less efficient ways of delivering the massive amounts of aid needed in Gaza.

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 daily number of supply trucks entering Gaza since the war began has been far below the 500 that entered before October 7.

Earlier in the week, Israel allowed six aid trucks to enter directly into the north, a step aid groups have long called for.

World Central Kitchen operates 65 kitchens across Gaza from where it has served 32 million meals since the war started, the group said. The aid includes rice, flour, lentils, beans, tuna and canned meat, according to World Central Kitchen spokesperson Linda Roth.

It plans to distribute the food in the north, the largely devastated target of Israel’s initial offensive in Gaza, which has been mostly cut off by Israeli forces since October.

Up to 300,000 Palestinians are believed to have remained there despite Israeli evacuation orders, with many reduced to eating animal feed in recent weeks.

A second vessel being loaded with even more aid will head to Gaza once the aid on the first ship is offloaded and distributed, said Cyprus’ foreign minister, Constantinos Kombos. He declined to specify when the second vessel would leave, saying it depends in part on whether the Open Arms delivery goes smoothly.

The Israel-Hamas war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and left another 250 taken into Gaza as hostages.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians and driven most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes. A quarter of Gaza’s population is starving, according to the United Nations.

On Friday, Israel approved military plans to attack Rafah, the southernmost town in Gaza where the majority of the embattled strip’s population is sheltering, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

The operation will involve the evacuation of the civilian population, the statement said, without specifying how or when this would take place. There are 1.4 million displaced Palestinians living in Rafah.

The military had said on Wednesday that it planned to direct them to “humanitarian islands” in the centre of the territory ahead of its planned offensive in the area.

Officials from the United States and other countries have expressed concerns over Israel’s plans to invade Rafah, fearing for the safety of the civilians.

However, Mr Netanyahu has said he had no intention of backing down, saying that attacking Hamas in Rafah was crucial to his goal of eliminating the militant group.

Friday’s statement came after Hamas released a ceasefire proposal calling for a three-stage process, starting with a partial Israeli pullback in Gaza and the release of dozens of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of all the female hostages that militants are holding in the enclave, according to a report on the Al-Jazeera television station confirmed to the Associated Press by a Palestinian official.

Mr Netanyahu called the demands “unrealistic” but said that an Israeli delegation would join international mediators in Doha for another round of talks after the Israel security cabinet hammered down its position.

The aid ship could be spotted from the coast hours after the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza accused Israeli forces of launching an attack near an aid distribution point in northern Gaza, killing 20 people and wounding 155 others.

The Israeli military said in a statement that Palestinian gunmen were the ones to open fire and that none of its forces, who were securing a convoy of 31 aid trucks, fired towards the waiting crowd or the convoy.

Some of those in the crowd were run over by the trucks, it said.

The health ministry said a group waiting for aid near the Kuwaiti roundabout was hit by Israeli shelling late Thursday.

The ministry said on Friday that 149 people were killed over the past 24 hours, bringing to at least 31,490 the number of Palestinians killed in the war. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two thirds of the dead.

Bloodshed surrounding an aid convoy on February 29 killed 118 Palestinians in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said some of its forces fired at people in the crowd who were advancing towards them. Witnesses and hospital officials said many of the casualties were from bullet wounds. The Israeli military said many of the casualties were caused by a stampede over the food and people being run over by the aid trucks.

After that, plans for the sea route took shape and the US and other countries joined Jordan in dropping aid into the north by plane.

But people in northern Gaza say the airdrops are insufficient to meeting the vast need. Many cannot 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.

A recent airdrop that malfunctioned plummeted from the sky and killed five people.

Another drop landed in a sewage and garbage dump, said Riham Abu al-Bid, 27. 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.

The war has exacerbated tensions throughout the region and threatened to flare into broader violence.

At the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam, the first Friday prayers of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan were held without a major outbreak of protest or violence.

The mosque has been a frequent flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence in the past.

But Israel put restrictions in place limiting West Bank Palestinians’ access to the compound for Friday’s prayers to men over 55, women over 50 and children under 10 and required all of them to have special permits.

Palestinians without the permits were prevented from crossing into Jerusalem from the West Bank.

The compound has long been a deeply contested religious space, as it stands on the Temple Mount, which Jews consider their most sacred site.

Meanwhile, Australia said it will restore funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, weeks after the agency lost hundreds of millions of dollars in support following Israeli allegations that some of its Gaza-based staff participated in the October 7 attack.

The Australian government also pledged to increase aid for the besieged enclave, with foreign minister Penny Wong expressing horror at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Australia’s move follows Sweden, the European Commission and Canada in reinstating funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which had seen its international funding frozen while the allegations were investigated.