Gaza support ship scheduled to depart from Cyprus

A ship carrying desperately needed humanitarian aid is scheduled to set sail for Gaza this weekend.

The Spanish ship Open Arms is scheduled to depart from Cyprus, the EU country closest to Gaza, and hopes to take advantage of the newly opened route.

It is still unclear where the ship will anchor once it reaches Gaza, as there is no functioning port and the water is shallow.

The United Nations announced that a quarter of the Strip’s population was on the brink of starvation and children were dying of starvation.

The ship, which is expected to arrive in Gaza within the next few days, belongs to the Spanish charity Open Arms of the same name.

Open Arms founder Oscar Camps told The Associated Press that the ship arrived in Larnaca three weeks ago and will be towing a barge loaded with supplies provided by the U.S. charity World Central Kitchen. he said.

Open Arms said Israeli authorities had begun inspecting the cargo of “200 tons of basic food items, rice and flour, and canned tuna.”

Laura Lanuza told AFP news agency that the ship could be on board “today or tomorrow” depending on all “licenses and permits and when we can get them.”

Camps said the ship will take about two to three days to reach an undisclosed location off the coast of Gaza.

He added that the last mile of the journey, totaling about 216 nautical miles, would be “the most complex operation,” but added that he was “not concerned at all about safety.”

At the destination, World Central Kitchen teams are building a pier to receive supplies, he said. The group has 60 kitchens across Gaza where it will be able to distribute food.

“What initially seemed like an insurmountable challenge is now on the brink of becoming a reality,” a post on Open Arms’ X account said.

“Our tugs are ready to embark at any time, carrying large quantities of food, water and critical supplies for Palestinian civilians.”

World Central Kitchen said it had been preparing for the aid trip for weeks, waiting for transport routes to open.

The Pentagon later announced that it would take up to 60 days to complete and that construction would require about 1,000 troops, but not a single one would go ashore.

U.S. officials say the port can accommodate large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelter. The first shipment will arrive via Cyprus, where it will undergo Israeli security inspections.

A Pentagon spokesperson said the pier could potentially deliver up to 2 million meals each day.

Neither Biden nor von der Leyen have mentioned the other’s plans, so it is unclear whether and how the U.S. temporary jetty and the EU maritime corridor will work together.

On Saturday afternoon, the US announced it had dropped 41,400 “meal equivalents” and 23,000 bottles of water in northern Gaza, with further airlifts planned.

Accepting aid to the Gaza Strip is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous. The World Food Program suspended deliveries to northern Gaza last month after convoys endured “complete chaos and violence,” the group said.

With land transport nearly impossible, several countries have resorted to air transport, but the situation in the Gaza Strip is so dire that air transport is an inefficient way to get supplies to people.

Following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, Israeli forces launched air and ground operations in the Gaza Strip, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages.

More than 30,800 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the region’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The conflict is creating a growing humanitarian crisis, with the United Nations warning that famine in Gaza is “almost inevitable.”

At least 576,000 people (a quarter of the population) across the Gaza Strip face catastrophic levels of food insecurity, with one in six children under two in the north suffering from acute malnutrition. A senior United Nations aid official warned last week.

Save the Children has welcomed recent international efforts to provide further aid to Gaza, but children in Gaza “can’t wait” for the time it will take to build a temporary port for feeding. said.

“They are already dying of malnutrition and saving their lives is a matter of hours or days, not weeks,” the charity said in a statement.

Médecins Sans Frontières called on Israel to facilitate the flow of supplies, saying the U.S.’s plan for a temporary jetty “is a clear distraction from the real problem.”

Additional reporting by Tiffany Wertheimer