Five long months have passed since President of Cyprus – Nikos Christodoulides’ proposal to create a maritime corridor for the delivery of aid to Gaza by ship. Official consent for the implementation of this proposal was given by Israel in December of last year, but since then, until March 7th of this year, when the President of the United States (U.S.), Joe Biden, announced the implementation of this initiative during his State of the Nation address, there was no mention of the maritime corridor in the media nor behind political platforms. Today the maritime corridor is again in the public eye. The first ship with 200 tons of humanitarian aid set sail from the port of Larnaca in Cyprus on Tuesday.
We thought it would be mission-impossible
The ship with almost 200 tons of food for Gaza is a pilot project to open a new sea route to help the population on the brink of starvation. The mission, which is mostly financed by the United Arab Emirates, is organized by the American humanitarian organization World Central Kitchen (WCK), while the Spanish humanitarian organization Proactiva Open Arms secured the ship.
“They left,” said Laura Lanuza from the Spanish humanitarian organization Open Arms, which operates the ship, recalling how at first, when they arrived in Cyprus, they thought this would all be mission-impossible.
Open Arms’ partner is the American humanitarian organization World Central Kitchen, which is already present in Gaza and must receive aid and distribute it.
The Spanish-flagged ship was expected to arrive at the Gaza port on Tuesday night or on Wednesday. While European politicians welcomed the ship’s departure, the U.S. said it would help the maritime corridor by building a “temporary dock” on the Gaza coast to receive humanitarian aid. What could be a big challenge now concerns the size of the port itself in Gaza, which is too small to accommodate large cargo ships.
However, the maritime corridor is currently a lifeline for the suffering people of Gaza, as the only aid route to the war-torn coastal enclave runs overland from Egypt to Rafah, but it is insufficient. According to statements from the United Nations (UN), the authorities of Israel are trying to slow down and prevent the entry of aid trucks, which can be seen from the data records of this intergovernmental organization, which, among other things, aims to maintain international peace and security as well as develop friendly relations between nations, that from the end of February to the third day of March, less than 1,000 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip, which is a minor number of the required 500 aid trucks on a daily basis.
500 times more aid can arrive by ship
Harry Tzimitras, director of the Oslo Cyprus Center Peace Research Institute warned in October last year that the Rafahcrossing is used for the passage of about 100 trucks a day, while there is a need for 400 of them, which cannot be realized because the scanners have not been upgraded and can be carried with a limited number of checks at the point.
Because of all of the above, there was diplomatic pressure to use ships because they could deliver 500 times more aid than trucks. Israeli Ambassador to Cyprus Oren Anolik called it a “positive initiative”, but also warned that there are many details in this regard that need to be resolved. Egypt also did not oppose the proposal, N1 reports.
E.Dz.
