This Thursday the first ship with humanitarian aid arrives in Gaza: what other entry points exist today for assistance to the Strip?

The “Open Arms” ship, owned by the Spanish NGO of the same name, was due to arrive in the Gaza Strip this Thursday, after having set sail on Tuesday from Cyprus with some 200 tons of food aid.

The ship was approaching the Israeli coast this Thursday afternoon, according to the Marinetraffic website. This is the first ship to take a new maritime corridor that allows reaching Gaza.

The landing, an odyssey

Opern Arms has overcome all the bureaucratic obstacles, but the hardest thing is yet to come why unload that large amount of food in a territory at war in which there is no deep-water port It represents a challenge for this humanitarian mission.

“The only port in Gaza it was destroyed long ago and the temporary port that the United States has already announced it will take weeks to build, so the most delicate point of this journey will be the disembarkation. The entire coast of the Strip is a beach and the unloading of 200 tons of humanitarian aid will be very complex on a technical and safety level, especially in the last mile”, Open Arms spokesperson Laura Lanuza explained to “20 Minuto”.

Cyprus’ foreign minister said he is preparing a second larger ship in the port of Larnaca.

The maritime corridor that allows the transport of aid is it will be complemented by a temporary pier facing Gaza which will constitute the American troops, the Washington administration has indicated.

Recent aid launches from several countries they are “not an alternative” to ground deliveriesThis was underlined in a statement by 25 NGOs, including Amnesty International and Oxfam.

Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas after the October 7 attack, when Islamic commandos killed around 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.

Also They kidnapped about 250 people130 of whom are still detained in Gaza, although Israel estimates that 32 of them are dead.

Israel responded with an intense bombing campaign and ground operations in Gaza that have resulted in at least 31,341 deaths, most of them civilians, according to the Ministry of Health of the territory, which has 2.4 million inhabitants.

In his offensive, Israel besieges Gaza allowing the entry of trucks with humanitarian cargoes through the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt, which has caused signs of famine especially in northern Gaza, where it is a war zone.

How else can humanitarian aid enter Gaza?

The vast majority of humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip arrives via this route is meticulously examined by the Israeli authorities before entering the south of the Palestinian territory.

Since the international community deems the aid arriving in this way insufficient, it seeks it diversify entry routes with airdrops or a maritime corridor from Cyprus. As part of the initiative, Israel is also bringing six trucks to northern Gaza a “pilot project”.

Aid generally reaches Egypt by the ports of Port Said or al-Arish. The latter, much smaller than Port Said, is the closest to the Gaza Strip overflows quicklyaccording to NGOs, due to incoming volumes.

All this aid is controlled by the Israeli authorities, who have scrupulously monitored everything that enters the territory since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The main inspection point is located in Kerem Shalom, in the southeastern corner of the Gaza Strip. Another checkpoint exists in Nitzana, an Israeli town located about 50 km east of Kerem Shalom.

Before being searched, the trucks, which mostly enter from the Rafah crossing on the border between Egypt and Gaza, They wait for days in a transit zone whose capacity, of around 50 seats, is considered insufficient by NGOs.

Products allowed to enter after inspection are unloaded from trucks between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, then loaded onto other vehicles driven by Palestinians working for NGOs with the aim of distributing aid in the territory.

According to NGOs, controls Israel is drastic are the main cause of the slow transfer of help. The Israeli authorities refer to the inability of humanitarian organizations to manage all aid in the Gaza Strip.

Except Rafah and Kerem Shalom in the south, no other passages are open.

For weeks, international organizations and the United States have been putting pressure on Israel to open steps towards this part of Palestinian territory where the humanitarian crisis is most serious.

Israel announced on Tuesday night that six World Food Program (WFP) aid trucks entered the north directly “through “gate 96″ of the security fence”, a “pilot project” of the army.

He transfer of aid from the south to the north Gaza is very complex due to the destruction and prevalent fighting.

Last week, the AMP announced that one of its caravans had been blocked by Israeli authorities before it could pass north. After returning, It was looted by a “desperate mob”.

Given the insufficiency of aid, several countries (United States, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, France, Belgium…) carry out airdrops particularly in the north.

Small quantities, random nature, Danger of airdrops over highly populated areas: These initiatives are not considered sufficiently satisfactory by international organizations and the inhabitants of Gaza.

Morocco, for its part, said Tuesday that a shipment of 40 tons of aid landed at Tel Aviv airport to be transferred by land through Israel to Kerem Shalom.