The European Union is pushing for a sea route from Cyprus to Gaza, and the British Foreign Minister is saying that Israel’s friends are getting tired of waiting for the aid to get through.
Aid groups say that Gaza is in a very bad situation, but the north part is especially bad. Many of the around 300,000 people still living there have to eat animal food to stay alive. The United Nations States that one out of every six young children in the northern region is suffering from severe malnutrition.
In response to the crisis, Israel has agreed to let aid go directly to northern Gaza and help with a sea route from Cyprus.
Israel said that on Friday, they will let 20 to 30 trucks with aid go into northern Gaza from Israel. This will happen more often in the future. They will start checking aid in Cyprus on Sunday before sending it to Gaza by sea, the official said. The ship will be used in a test to see if it’s possible to use the sea route. The help is funded by UAE and made possible with US involvement.
The officials talked without giving their names because they were not allowed to talk about the upcoming deliveries to the media.
Charities say it’s really hard to bring in supplies to most of Gaza because it’s tough to work with the Israeli military, there’s still fighting, and it’s chaotic. It is even harder to get help to the north.
Trucks with aid need to drive from the south of Gaza through the conflict zone to reach the areas in the north that are hard to reach. They can go through either the Rafah crossing with Egypt or the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.
The Israeli military tried to help with aid last week, but it ended in a tragedy. Over 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces or trampled in a fight.
On Wednesday, many people ran by the sea in Gaza City to get bags of flour, water, and canned food given by Turkey and Egypt. It was part of a delivery brought from southern Gaza.
David Cameron, the British Foreign Secretary, talked to Benny Gantz, who is a member of Israel’s war Cabinet. He asked him to send more help to Gaza.
“We still aren’t seeing things getting better in the area. ” “This needs to change,” Cameron said in a statement on X, which used to be called Twitter.
South Africa asked the court to make Israel allow aid for hunger in Gaza.
Meanwhile, a top leader from the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, will go to Cyprus on Friday to see the port of Larnaca and decide if they can send help to Gaza from there. Cyprus government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis said this.
The EU spokesman Eric Mamer said the group is optimistic that the corridor will open “very soon. ”
The United States, Jordan, and other countries are dropping food and supplies from airplanes because many people don’t have enough to eat. But, aid groups say that using airplanes can only help a small amount of the people who need it.
The fighting started when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October. Seven Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. Over 100 of them were let go during a week where fighting stopped in November.
The attack made Israel go into the area with 2. 3Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday that 30,717 Palestinians have died in the war. The ministry is part of the government led by Hamas and keeps careful track of people who have been hurt or killed. It doesn’t separate between regular people and fighters in its counts, but it says that around two-thirds of those who are killed are women and children.
Israel claims to have killed more than 13,000 Hamas soldiers, but has not shown any proof.
Charity organizations say that the fighting has forced most of the people in the area to leave their homes, and that a quarter of the population is very close to not having enough food to eat.
So far, the attempts to agree on a break from fighting before the start of Ramadan have not been successful.
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Israel under pressure to expand its humanitarian access to Gaza
