A ship at work. The French helicopter carrier Diksmuide, configured to offer hospital support to wounded civilians in the Gaza Strip, received "first patients in relative emergency" in the Egyptian port of Al-Arish on Tuesday, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced Tuesday on CNews television.
"Tonight, we have the first patients in relative emergency who have been welcomed on the boat, all this will ramp up slowly," said Sébastien Lecornu, welcoming the fact that France is "the first Western power to put means of care so close to the Gaza Strip".
The hospital structure of the ship that docked on Monday includes two operating theatres, 40 beds, more than 80 caregivers, scanners and analysis laboratories, according to the minister.
Tons of humanitarian cargo
France has already transported "more than 100 tons" of humanitarian cargo since the beginning of the war, including through rotations of military aircraft, he said.
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As part of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas to allow for the release of hostages, several hundred trucks loaded with aid have also been able to enter the Gaza Strip since Friday, via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, and some of them have reached the north, the part of the territory most devastated by the war.
Also on Tuesday, long convoys of trucks came in. But "the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains catastrophic," said UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland.