He is very close to the Gaza Strip this Friday morning.
The Spanish boat Open Arms, carrying around 200 tonnes of humanitarian aid, is visible off the coast of Gaza City, said an AFP journalist on site.
Le Parisien takes stock of this long-awaited ship.
When will it dock?
Images taken by an AFP journalist show the characteristic shape of this boat and the barge it is towing from Cyprus with humanitarian aid.
Early this Friday, this ship was heading in the Mediterranean and approaching Gaza, according to the specialized site Marine Traffic.
According to the Vessel Finder site, the boat was less than 5 km from the coast at 9 a.m. (French time).
Some Gazans gathered on the coast to wait for the boat, according to AFP images.
The time of arrival of the boat and the disembarkation of the aid was not communicated by the two NGOs in charge of the operation or by the Israeli authorities.
What is he carrying?
This is the first boat using a maritime corridor between Cyprus and the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.
It contains 200 tonnes of food which will be distributed in Gaza by the World Central Kitchen organization.
According to it, the cargo contains in detail “rice”, “flour”, “legumes”, “canned vegetables” and “protein”.
⛴️ As if this was my hand from the port of Larnaca 🇨🇾the mission together #OpenArms and @WCKitchen rumbo in #Gaza, loaded with 200 tons of food.
🕊️Arrancaba as it is a maritime humanitarian corredor to France, in a high-compliance mission.
Confiamos en que este paso… pic.twitter.com/ztx1mWaO4n
— Open Arms (@openarms_fund) March 12, 2024
A WCK team present in Gaza has built a floating jetty where cargo intended for the population of the north of the territory will be unloaded.
“We hope to unload the aid as soon as it is possible to dock, but many factors play into this complicated operation,” Erin Gore, WCK executive director, said Thursday.
The territory in the grip of famine
This boat arrives at a time when the UN fears widespread famine in the Gaza Strip, particularly in the north, which is difficult to access, where more than 300,000 people currently live.
Aid by land, very insufficient in the face of the immense needs of the territory's 2.4 million inhabitants, mainly enters the Gaza Strip from Egypt via the Rafah border crossing, after having been inspected by Israel.
VIDEO.
Ship loaded with food leaves Cyprus for Gaza
But the volume of aid arriving in this way is not enough to meet the needs of the population, hence the calls to open other routes, leading to the north of the territory, and various initiatives such as airdrops of bags of food.
Also read: Gaza: dropping humanitarian aid by air, an alternative to delivery by truck?
“Since the war started and people moved south, we haven't received any help.
We have been wandering since early in the morning in the hope that a plane will drop parachutes above us,” displaced person Mokhles al-Masry told AFP, with a bag of flour on his shoulders, in Beit Lahya.
But “everyone is scrambling violently to get a box for their children, to get a can of tuna or beans.
All the people are hungry and exhausted,” he added.
Five people were killed during a package drop in the al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City on March 8.
This Wednesday, the Palestinian Islamist movement reported twenty deaths after Israeli “shooting” during a food aid distribution, which the IDF denies.