Gaza Strip: a “maritime corridor” project and questions
The European Commission and several countries, including the United States, are working to establish a maritime corridor to supply the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid.
The idea is to deliver aid by sea from the island of Cyprus, an EU country located less than 400 kilometers from the coast of Gaza.
The humanitarian situation on site is disastrous: trucks are arriving in trickles, recent airdrops are largely insufficient, and this maritime system still seems very vague.
Palestinians on the shores of the Mediterranean in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, February 26, 2024. AFP - -
By: Nicolas Falez Follow
Advertisement
Read more
“
We are very close to the opening of this corridor, hopefully this Sunday
,” announced this Friday
Ursula von der Leyen
, the President of the European Commission, visiting Cyprus.
Several countries are working together on this maritime system: Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
As part of this agreement, humanitarian aid would be subject to inspections by a team including Israeli officials present on Cypriot soil.
The humanitarian cargo will then have to be transported by boat to the
Gaza
Strip , around 370 km from the Cypriot port of Larnaca.
Before Ursula von der Leyen's announcements, American President
Joe Biden
had unveiled another part of this plan, ordering “
the American army to urgently establish a temporary port in the Mediterranean, on the coast of Gaza
”.
According to the American president, this installation will “
accommodate large shipments of food, water, medicine and shelter
”.
Joe Biden adding that no American soldier will set foot on the soil of the Gaza Strip.
Around 2.3 million Palestinians live in the bombed-out Gaza Strip since Hamas attacks in
Israel
on October 7.
Israeli operations have cost more than 30,000 lives and the humanitarian situation is catastrophic.
Can this announcement of a humanitarian corridor by sea change the situation?
“
How is this going to be organized?
, asks Jean-Raphaël Poitou, Middle East advocacy officer for the NGO Action Against Hunger.
Will it be in coordination with the UN, who will collect and distribute?
Or just a boat that arrives, drops off the aid and leaves?
Will it be the people who need it who will benefit from it?
»
Five Palestinians killed this Friday by humanitarian aid drops
For months, humanitarian organizations and the
UN
have been insisting that humanitarian aid for Gaza exists, but that it is blocked outside the territory, in lines of trucks that Israel only lets in at a later date. -drops in the Palestinian enclave.
“
Deliveries by air or sea cannot replace land supply routes
,” stressed again this week the UN coordinator in charge of aid for Gaza.
The maritime corridor announced today could encounter the same obstacles as the humanitarian aid airdrops which have been carried out by several countries including France.
Five Palestinians in Gaza were killed this Friday by airdrops of humanitarian aid and more and more testimonies also indicate an upsurge in crime around the rare humanitarian cargoes which enter the Gaza Strip by land.
Inventory is stolen for resale and chaotic scenes unfold as hungry crowds rush onto trucks.
It was during one of these events that around 120 people were killed on February 29.
The Israeli army admits to having opened fire, but assures that it is not its shots which are at the origin of this death toll.
It is difficult to say whether a maritime corridor can provide supplies to the Palestinians in Gaza in sufficient security conditions.
Read alsoWar in Gaza: “What we know about the atrocities, crimes and carnage is very limited”
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your inbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
Share :
Continue reading on the same themes:
Gaza
European Union
Ursula von der Leyen
Humanitarian
Palestinian territories
Israelo-Palestinian conflict
UNITED STATES
Israel
Joe Biden