The European Union and the United States announced on Friday the upcoming opening of a maritime corridor between Cyprus and Gaza to transport humanitarian aid to the hungry Palestinian territory constantly bombarded by Israel, after five months of war.
This announcement followed that of US President Joe Biden on a major humanitarian operation by sea involving, according to US officials, the construction of a “temporary pier” in Gaza to allow “massive aid”.
Israel “welcomed” the maritime humanitarian corridor planned between Cyprus and the Gaza Strip, nearly 380 km apart. This initiative “will allow the increase of aid (entering) Gaza after a security check corresponding to Israeli standards”, wrote Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lior Haiat on X.
After five months of a devastating war triggered on October 7 by a bloody Hamas attack against Israel, Israeli strikes have claimed the lives of at least 78 people in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 30,878 since start of the conflict according to the Islamist movement’s health ministry on Friday.
The United States is putting increasing pressure on Israel, its ally, which has besieged Gaza since October 9 and only allows aid to enter in trickles from Egypt.
According to the UN, of the 2.4 million inhabitants in the cramped territory, 2.2 million are threatened with famine with serious shortages of food and drinking water and 1.7 have been displaced by fighting and violence. Israeli strikes which also caused colossal destruction and reduced the hospital system to shreds.
“We are very close to the opening of this corridor, hopefully this Sunday,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the port of Larnaca in southern Cyprus, the EU country. geographically closest to Gaza.
A first pilot operation will be launched on Friday, she added, accompanied by Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire […] This is why the European Commission, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States are announcing today their intention to open a maritime corridor to deliver additional humanitarian aid that is sorely needed,” according to a joint statement from the participants.
While recognizing that this operation would be “complex”, they underlined their determination to work to “guarantee that aid is delivered as efficiently as possible”.
“Temporary pier” in Gaza
In recent days, several Arab and Western countries, including the United States and France, have carried out numerous airdrops of food.
But these airdrops, as well as sending aid by sea, cannot replace the land route, believes the UN, which warns of an “almost inevitable widespread famine” in Gaza.
“The diversification of land supply routes remains the optimal solution” according to Sigrid Kaag, the UN coordinator in charge of aid for Gaza.
“I am working hard to achieve an immediate ceasefire of at least six weeks,” Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address on Thursday, calling on Israel not to use humanitarian aid as a “bargaining currency”.
According to US officials, the construction of a “temporary pier” in Gaza will take several weeks and does not mean the deployment of US soldiers on the ground.
The entry of aid and its delivery to different sectors of the Gaza Strip, particularly in the north, also remain very difficult due to fighting, bombings, destruction and sometimes looting.
Occupied by the Israeli army from 1967 to 2005, the Gaza Strip, already subject to an Israeli blockade since Hamas took power in 2007, is bordered by Israel, Egypt which keeps its border closed and the Mediterranean Sea .
According to the Hamas health ministry, at least 20 civilians, most of them children, died of malnutrition and dehydration in the Palestinian territory.
“Everyone was screaming”
The war was triggered on October 7 by an attack of unprecedented scale by Hamas which left at least 1,160 dead, most of them civilians, in southern Israel, according to an AFP count established from official sources.
Around 250 people were also kidnapped and taken to Gaza that day, and 130 hostages are still being held there, 31 of whom Israel says are dead.
In response, Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
“The Israeli army will continue to operate throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated Thursday.
To achieve “total victory”, Israel says it is preparing a ground offensive on Rafah, in the far south of the Gaza Strip against the closed border with Egypt, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are massed according to the ‘UN.
“We were sleeping when a missile hit the house. Everyone started screaming. My sister-in-law and her children were killed. We don’t know where to go now with our children,” Jamila Abou Audeh, a 55-year-old displaced person, told Rafah in tears after seeing rescuers remove bodies from the rubble.
After four days of unsuccessful negotiations in Cairo, negotiations on a truce involving the mediator countries – Egypt, Qatar, United States are due to resume next week in Cairo, according to pro-government Egyptian media. Al-Qahera News.
The mediators hoped to reach an agreement on a truce combined with a release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners before Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims, which begins early next week.
Hamas is demanding a definitive ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza before any agreement, which Israel refuses.