A ship from the Spanish NGO Open Arms will inaugurate the maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza. The ship was loaded on Saturday, March 9, in the Cypriot port of Larnaca with some 200 tons of humanitarian aid destined for the Palestinian enclave. It is expected that, depending on safety and weather conditions, she will be able to set sail this weekend. The corridor will be implemented while a truce between Israel and Hamas is being negotiated, without apparent progress.
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The Spanish ship Open Arms plans to inaugurate the maritime corridor from Cyprus to bring aid to the Gaza Strip and alleviate the difficult humanitarian situation, that is approaching famine, caused by Israel's blockade and reprisals after the attacks by the Islamist group Hamas on October 7.
Oscar Camps Gausachsfounder and director of Open Arms, told France 24 that it is a complicated process and that they are waiting for the best safety and meteorological conditions to be able to set sail.
The founder of Open Arms said that the ship will transport 200 tons of food, such as flour, rice and cans of tuna, to the Gaza Strip, where they will be received and distributed by teams from World Central Kitchen, an NGO founded by the renowned Spanish chef José Andrés and with whom they have been devising this mission for several months.
“This is a challenge, no one has done it so far,” he stressed, indicating that they are looking for it to be “scalable” so that deliveries are maintained.
“We are finalizing, but we still do not know exactly the moment (of departure),” Laura Lanuza, director of Communications and Projects at Open Arms, told EFE on board the ship.
The European Commission had announced on Friday that a maritime aid corridor between Cyprus and Gaza could begin operating this weekend, within a pilot project led by an international charity and funded by the United Arab Emirates.
The Open Arms, a rescue ship owned by a Spanish NGO and used to rescuing migrants at sea, was ready Saturday at a port in the Cypriot coastal city of Larnaca, 210 miles northwest of Gaza.
It will tow a barge with 200 tonnes of food sourced by the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity and largely funded by the United Arab Emirates.
The suffering of millions of people trapped in #Loop It is unbearable and the risk of death is increasing if they do not receive immediate humanitarian aid. Therefore, since @wck and @openarms_fund We need you to make effective the maritime humanitarian corridor that alleviates this… pic.twitter.com/QP7iPQALXV
— Oscar Camps (@campsoscar) February 28, 2024
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, whose administration pushed for months to establish the corridor, told reporters on Saturday:
“In the next 24 hours the ship will leave Larnaca. I cannot specify when, for security reasons.”
A WCK spokesperson said the departure would occur “as soon as possible when all conditions are favourable”, without giving further details.
The sea trip to Gaza is estimated to take 15 hours, although towing the barge could take longer.
A temporary pier
The United States reported that it plans to build a temporary pier to bring aid to Gaza, a territory that has no port infrastructure. It also plans to initially use Cyprus, which offers a cargo inspection process that will include Israeli officials, eliminating the need for security checks in Gaza.
As negotiations for a truce in Israel's war against Hamas remain stalled, aid agencies have warned of imminent famine, following five months of Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
The majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people are now internally displaced, with severe obstacles in the delivery of aid at land border checkpoints.
A sea corridor from Cyprus would complement attempts to increase aid supplies, which have included food drops from the air.
“WCK and its partners agree that more than one ship will be needed and are working to achieve a steady flow of aid,” the organization said in a statement, adding that another 500 tons of aid was ready.
A WCK spokesman added that the intention was to sail to Gaza, where that organization and its partners were building a pier unrelated to the US project.
Gaza has been under an Israeli naval blockade since 2007, when Hamas took control of the enclave. Since then there have been few direct arrivals by sea. The port of Larnaca was used by pro-Palestinian activists, who used small sailboats to reach the port of Gaza in 2008.
This will be the second collaboration between Open Arms and World Central Kitchen. In May 2022, the Open Arms ship landed 110 tons of food in the Ukrainian region of Odessa, greatly affected by the attack launched by Russia against Ukraine in February of that year.
With Reuters and EFE
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