The “thousand” obstacles to the creation of a maritime aid corridor towards Gaza: a ship is already sailing towards the Strip with 200 tons of aid

He Boat of the NGO Open Arms It set sail for Gaza on Tuesday morning from the port of Larnaca, Cyprus. The mission is very complex because the challenges that arose since it began to take shape.

“We have overcome all the difficulties and finally the ideal conditions have been created to be able to set sail”, the Open Arms spokesperson tells RFI. Meteorology and logistics have posed major challenges for this corridor which aims to alleviate the situation in Gaza.

It is the first ship with supplies that left Cyprus to headr a humanitarian corridor established by the European Union towards the Gaza Strip, threatened by famine after more than five months of war between Israel and Hamas.

According to the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health, there are 27 people, including at least 21 childrenhe died of malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza hospitals since the war began on October 7.

The mission, from the name Operation Safeena (ship in Arabic), is very complex due to the challenges that have arisen since it began to take shape more than two months ago. Your cargo… around 200 tons of foods such as rice, flour or preserves- will be distributed by the organization Central World Cuisine (WCK), by Hispanic-American chef José Andrés.

“The biggest complications of this mission began the moment we thought about carrying it out. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for months, but we started working in person in the port of Larnaca three weeks ago. In the first days we realized that the chances of this being real They were remotethat it was extremely difficult to achieve the opening of this maritime corridor It has been blocked for many years. Well, we have overcome all the difficulties and finally today the ideal conditions have been created to be able to set sail”, Laura Lanuza, spokesperson for Open Arms, tells RFI.

One of the first challenges of the operation was how and where to move the 200 tons of aidas Open Arms does not have that capability.

A 20 meter platform with help

The solution came as a platform 20 meters long and 10 meters wide. The platform, anchored to the ship with steel cables, hosts the 200 tons of non-perishable foods, including cans of tuna, flour, rice and legumes, distributed in 130 pallets.

To unload the load it was necessary to resort to creativity, because The sine qua non condition imposed by Israel is that the crew maintain no contact with the population of Gaza.