More countries join the US-backed initiative to transport assistance by sea to Gaza

Officials said on Friday that the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates would join the United States in establishing a maritime channel for humanitarian help to the Gaza Strip. This development will accelerate an intricate and unproven attempt to provide critically needed supplies to the region by water.
President of the European Union executive body Ursula von der Leyen and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron announced their participation just hours after US President Joe Biden revealed US plans to construct a makeshift floating pier off the coast of Gaza to facilitate the delivery of food, water, medicine, and other essentials to needy Palestinian civilians.

According to von der Leyen, the first relief ship might leave Cyprus, a member of the EU, for Gaza on Friday, and there would be more on Sunday. However, it was not immediately apparent where or how the ships would disperse their supplies among Israeli artillery and assaults on relief vehicles by famished Palestinians.
Gaza lacks a functional port, the majority of boats cannot navigate its shallow coastal waters, and US officials have said that the construction of a floating pier may take up to 60 days.
Von der Leyen provided little information at a press conference in Cyprus. In a statement released on Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that it was in favor of a maritime corridor—so long as cargo is cleared “in accordance with Israeli standards” before departing Cyprus.
In the face of several inquiries, US and European officials underlined how critical it is to provide additional entry points for supplies into Gaza, where humanitarian organizations report that 2.2 million Palestinians are suffering from acute starvation as a result of Israeli bombings and ground assaults against Hamas. The UK, the EU, and the UAE said in a joint statement that the sea corridor has to “be part of a sustained effort to increase the flow of humanitarian aid and commercial commodities into Gaza through all possible routes.”
The US and other countries have been warning for months that Israel is not allowing enough humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza by land. Palestinian health authorities have reported that several children have died from hunger, and the UN has warned that over 570,000 Palestinians are suffering “catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.” These worries have grown in the last few days.
Aid workers claim that the absence of land-based supply lines cannot be made up for by maritime shipments or the few airdrops carried out by the US and other countries. In February, the number of relief trucks entering Gaza via the two accessible land crossings was only approximately 100 per day on average, a small fraction of what was entering before the start of the war in October. Israel maintains that it does not impose restrictions on the amount of assistance that enters Gaza, but it has insisted on checking supplies because it believes Hamas may redirect it.
“We are aware of the challenges encountered in Gaza at the land borders,” von der Leyen said to the press.
In a social media post announcing Britain’s participation in the marine operation, Cameron said, “We continue to urge Israel to allow more trucks into Gaza as the fastest way to get aid to those who need it.”
As many humanitarian organizations have demanded, Israeli authorities have not said if they will allow more landways into Gaza, especially into the northern region, where assistance delivery has all but ceased due to instability.
The maritime route’s plans started to take shape months ago. Cyprus’s President Nikos Christodoulides declared in November that his nation would gather goods, check them at the port of Larnaca, and then sail them via a safe sea corridor to Gaza, which is around 240 miles distant.
If this weekend’s first shipments go well, further supplies will come, according to Konstantinos Letymbiotis, a spokesman for the Cyprus government. He estimated that the trip would take around 15 hours, but he wouldn’t reveal the location of the shipment’s delivery in Gaza due to security concerns.
“As a European Union member at the heart of the region, Cyprus bears a moral duty to do its utmost to assist in alleviating the humanitarian crisis,” Christodoulides said on Friday.