TEL AVIV — A private aid ship that has been chugging at 3 mph across the Mediterranean Sea is set to arrive in Gaza on Friday, carrying the first nautical delivery for hungry Palestinians while tons of food and supplies sit on idling trucks in Egypt, waiting for permission to enter the besieged enclave.
The Open Arms, named after the Spanish charity that’s transporting the supplies, set sail Tuesday on the roughly 200-mile voyage from the Larnaca port in Cyprus. It’s towing a barge containing flour, rice and protein to the enclave, where five months of war have left around a quarter of its 2.3 million residents “one step away” from famine, according to the United Nations.
Already, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has reported more than two dozen deaths caused by malnutrition and dehydration, with the U.N. noting that most of the reported victims were children.
The food was collected by World Central Kitchen, the charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, which operates a network of around 60 kitchens across the Gaza Strip.
The nongovernmental organization said in a statement Tuesday that it was building a jetty from destroyed rubble to receive the aid in the center of Gaza. It said it would not be disclosing details about the ship’s journey and expected arrival because of security concerns.
“Our goal is to establish a maritime highway of boats and barges stocked with millions of meals continuously headed towards Gaza,” Andrés and the NGO’s CEO, Erin Gore, said in the statement.
The push to open the nautical route — as well as recent aid airdrops into northern Gaza — comes amid increasing international frustration about the growing humanitarian crisis in the enclave and the inability to get enough aid in by road.
The U.S. and many of its international partners have been pushing to speed up the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. But Israel has tightly controlled the entry of aid, which has been delivered by trucks through the country’s Kerem Shalom border crossing or the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Aid groups have said their efforts have been hampered because of the difficulty coordinating with the Israeli military, as well as ongoing fighting and the breakdown of public order, which have led to the looting of several convoys. As a result, only a small fraction of what is needed has entered the enclave, the agencies have said.
The Israel Defense Forces said the aid ship delivery was being carried out “in coordination with Israeli security and civilian authorities, in accordance with the directive of the government of Israel and at the request of the U.S. government.”
It said all the equipment on the ship underwent a comprehensive security check and was accompanied by Israeli officials.
IDF spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, separately suggested to reporters Wednesday that more routes could open up and that Israel was “trying to flood the area” with aid.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said in a statement that at least one of its staff members was killed and 22 others were injured in an Israeli strike on one of its food distribution centers in southern Gaza. The IDF acknowledged the strike but said in a statement that it had killed Muhammad Abu Hasna, a Hamas commander who it said was taking aid and giving it to the militant group.
On Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said a number of people were killed and dozens of others were injured while waiting for the expected arrival of aid. It later updated the death toll to more than 21 people killed. NBC News was not immediately able to independently verify the situation on the ground.
The IDF said reports that its forces attacked dozens of Gazans at an aid distribution point were “false.” It said it continued to assess the incident.
Last month more than 100 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 injured trying to access aid in northern Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry, which accused Israel of opening fire on the crowd. Israel has said that it fired only when its troops felt threatened and that most of the civilian casualties were trampled to death.
Five people were also killed last week by aid packages dropped from aircraft into Gaza, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense Service.
Facing growing political pressure at home and abroad to do more to help Palestinians, even as the U.S. continues to supply Israel with military hardware, President Joe Biden announced last week that the U.S. military will construct a temporary port in Gaza to get more humanitarian aid into the territory by sea.
But that was criticized by aid groups, including Médecins…
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