First vessel carrying aid leaves Cyprus for Gaza as UN warns of famine

The first vessel carrying food to Gaza from Cyprus departed on Tuesday, aiming to establish a new maritime aid corridor to the besieged enclave as the threat of starvation among Palestinians looms.

The delivery, organised by two Spanish NGOs, World Central Kitchen and Open Arms, includes nearly 200 tons of rice, flour, legumes, canned vegetables, and canned proteins. It is being pulled across the Mediterranean on a barge.

A second vessel is being prepared to make the same journey, Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos told state radio. 

Open Arms and World Central Kitchen partnered with the United Arab Emirates to bring the first shipment into Gaza, according to the World Central Kitchen Founder, Jose Andres.

“We are heading towards Gaza, with our friends of @openarms_fund. Everyone thought was impossible, still many things are happening at once,” Andres said in a social media post on X, adding that a jetty in northern Gaza needed to be completed so the food could be unloaded.

Andres posted pictures on his social media account of bulldozers and trucks working at night on a beach. The construction workers, who were not identified, were seen lowering concrete blocks into the water. 

“We need to finish the Jetty that will allow us to download the food! Failure is not an option..North needs to be fed!” He said.

The move to transport food to Gaza by sea from Cyprus comes as the UN and other aid agencies warn that Gaza is on the brink of famine, due to Israel's prevention of the entry of life-saving aid from the enclave's land crossings. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who days ago announced the initiative on a Cyprus visit, hailed it as a "sign of hope".

"We will work hard together for many more ships to follow," she said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. "We will do everything in our power for aid to reach Palestinians."

The ongoing Israeli assault and siege on Gaza has killed more than 31,000 people, including at least 25 from starvation, most of them children, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The corridor spearheaded by World Central Kitchen is separate from a plan that the US is working on for the US military to construct a floating pier which would allow for larger aid shipments to be delivered to Gaza. The Pentagon has warned that this plan would likely take about two months.

World Food Kitchen says it has already delivered 35 million meals to Gaza over land and through airdrops assisted by Jordan. Its latest sea corridor project would need Israel's permission, as the country has had a naval blockade of the besieged enclave since 2007, when Hamas took over governing the Strip.

The United Arab Emirates normalised relations with Israel as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords. It is one of the last Arab countries to still have an Israeli ambassador in place after Israel’s ambassador pulled those in Jordan and Egypt after the Gaza war erupted.