The first aid ship on a new sea corridor from Cyprus began unloading a cargo of much-needed food in Gaza on Friday, meanwhile Hamas proposed a new six-week truce in the war and claimed it would release 42 hostages in exchange for thousands of prisoners.
World Central Kitchen, which has partnered with Open Arms, said another ship carrying beans, tinned meat, flour, rice and dates was preparing to depart at the Cypriot port of Larnaca. Although another food ship is ready for delivery, World Central Kitchen said road access needs to be improved to deliver aid to Gaza:
“Our ambition is having a highway of aid going into Gaza,” Juan Camilo Jimenez said in a video posted on X.
The Israeli military said it had sent troops to “secure the area” around the dock while the aid shipment was being unloaded. The “vessel underwent a comprehensive security inspection,” the statement said.
A spokesman for the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said Saturday that 123 people had been killed in Gaza in the past 24 hours, including 36 in a strike on a house sheltering displaced people at the Nuseirat centre.
Airstrikes and fighting were reported in Khan Younis, the main city in the southern Gaza Strip, as well as in northern areas where humanitarian conditions were particularly dire. Moreover, in Rafah, the last major population centre not yet under ground attack, footage showed worshippers praying near the rubble of a destroyed mosque.
Earlier, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the PM had approved the military’s plan for an operation in Rafah, where most of the Gaza Strip’s population has taken refuge, without giving details or a timeline.
The White House confirmed that storming Rafah would be a “red line” without credible plans to protect civilians, and said it had not seen the plan approved by Netanyahu.
The US, which provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, has increasingly criticised Netanyahu for the way he is handling the war. For example, US Senate leader Chuck Schumer called for early elections in Israel, naming Netanyahu as one of several “major obstacles” to peace in a speech praised by US President Joe Biden.
Additionally, during negotiations aimed at reaching a new truce and hostage agreement, Hamas put forward a new proposal for a six-week ceasefire and the exchange of several dozen Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. It includes the release of some 42 hostages who would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners at a ratio of 20 to 50 prisoners per hostage, but Israel rejected the offer.
As the number of aid trucks delivering aid by road has decreased, efforts to deliver aid by air and sea have increased. Cyprus, the closest European Union member country to Gaza, has confirmed the preparation of a larger aid ship.
