Lara Villalon

Updated Tuesday, March 12, 2024-12:07

  • Gaza 'Open Arms' delays its trip with 150 tons of aid to Gaza until tomorrow

A ship from the Spanish NGO

Open Arms

loaded with

200 tons of humanitarian aid

left Cyprus for Gaza this Tuesday, in an action coordinated by several countries to open a maritime route that facilitates the transport of aid to the enclave.

Open Arms

showed a video of the boat leaving the port of Larnaca, in the southeast of the Mediterranean island, although it did not reveal the departure time for security reasons.

"This opens the maritime humanitarian corridor to the Strip, in

a highly complex mission

that we trust will be the first of many that will manage to alleviate the humanitarian emergency situation that the population is experiencing," the organization said in an online publication. social

While

Open Arms provides the vessel, the Emirati funding mission is coordinated by the

World Central Kitchen (WCK)

charity

, led by Spanish chef

José Andrés

.

The Spanish chef has been coordinating food aid projects in places of conflict or in emergency situations due to natural disasters for years.

"Our goal is

to establish a maritime highway

of ships and barges supplied with millions of meals that continually head towards Gaza," José Andrés said in a statement from the organization.

The boat is carrying a trailer of flour, rice, proteins, as well as water and medicine, which will be distributed by

a team of about 400 people

from WCK.

About 320 kilometers separate Larnaca from Gaza, a trip that usually takes about 15 hours, although Cypriot authorities believe it could take up to 50 hours due to the weight carried by the boat.

If the ship reaches port, it would open the maritime corridor coordinated by the EU, the US, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, which seeks to alleviate famine in the Strip.

It would also mean the easing of the Israeli naval blockade imposed on the Strip since 2007, after Hamas took control of the Palestinian enclave.

The five months of war in Gaza have devastated the country's minimum services, to which is added the Israeli blockade on the entry of food and medicine.

In recent weeks the food situation has deteriorated especially in the north of the enclave, where

27 people have died from starvation

.

This naval operation has been planned for months.

While the EU has provided the Cypriot port, the US is expected to work on building a temporary port for the arrival of humanitarian aid.