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Reuters and Associated Press quoted Israeli officials as saying that Tel Aviv will cooperate in establishing a sea route that will transport aid to the Gaza Strip via Cyprus.

United Nations Aid Coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jamie McGoldrick, said that his organization will evaluate - today, Thursday - how to use an Israeli military road adjacent to the Gaza Strip to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians who have been stranded in northern Gaza since Israel began its devastating war more than 5 months ago.

The Associated Press, citing Israeli officials, said that their government will begin allowing aid to move directly from Israel to northern Gaza.

On Friday, between 20 and 30 trucks will be allowed to enter northern Gaza.

Officials also indicated that the Israeli government will also cooperate in establishing the sea route from Cyprus to Gaza, as it will begin on Sunday to conduct a security inspection of aid in Cyprus before transporting it to Gaza. The sources explained that transporting aid by sea will be part of a project to test the feasibility of the sea road to Gaza.

An informed source told Reuters - yesterday, Wednesday - that humanitarian aid is expected to sail from Cyprus to Gaza in the coming days.

The source told Reuters on condition of anonymity, “They want to send aid before the beginning of Ramadan” on Sunday.

It is not yet clear which country will provide the aid, where it will arrive, or how it will be distributed.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is scheduled to arrive in Cyprus late tomorrow, Thursday, and on Friday she will visit the port of Larnaca, which has been identified as the starting point for aid shipments.

Cyprus is located 370 kilometers northwest of Gaza in the Mediterranean Sea and is the closest European Union country to the besieged Strip.

Delivering aid to Gaza has become an urgent matter with the worsening humanitarian crisis and famine there, with 20 deaths due to famine and malnutrition recorded.

Military road

In this context, the United Nations Coordinator for Aid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said that the organization will evaluate on Thursday how to use an Israeli military road adjacent to the Gaza Strip to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians stranded in the northern Gaza Strip.

The United Nations warns that at least 576,000 people in Gaza, representing a quarter of the population, are on the brink of famine.

Jimmy McGoldrick said that the United Nations has been pressuring Israel for weeks to use a road on the border fence with Gaza, and that it received a greater degree of cooperation from Israel last week, as he put it.

“Once we enter Gaza, we will then be left to go on our own,” McGoldrick added, adding that the United Nations will conduct an assessment of the potential new route on Thursday to check the condition of the roads inside Gaza to ensure there are no unexploded ordnance and identify appropriate points for aid distribution.

The UN official explained that using this road to reach the northern Gaza Strip allows aid convoys to avoid blocked roads and the deteriorating security situation inside the Gaza Strip.

Aid can currently reach the southern Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing from Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel.

McGoldrick explained that the plan aims to inspect aid convoys at the two crossings and then escort them through Israel along a military road to the Israeli border village of Be'eri.

The United Nations World Food Program suspended the delivery of aid to the northern Gaza Strip last February due to safety concerns.

Last week, the Dawar al-Nabulsi area in Gaza City witnessed a massacre in which 116 Palestinians were martyred when the occupation forces opened fire on civilians while they were trying to obtain food supplies from aid trucks.

Since last October 7, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, massive infrastructure destruction and a humanitarian catastrophe, which led to Israel being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing genocide.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies