By Al-Fassel | 2024-01-30

A new aid proposal pushed by US, British and European officials will see humanitarian assistance for Gaza delivered through an Israeli port, helping speed up the delivery of life-saving aid, according to reports.

The officials have been in talks with Israel to allow aid to transit via Cyprus to the port of Ashdod, north of Gaza, the New York Times reported January 21.

After that the supplies would be transported through Kerem Shalom, which links Gaza, Israel and Egypt, and has been open for aid deliveries since December.

This new plan will help establish an alternative route to aid delivery via Egypt in a way that satisfies Israel's demand for security checks, the officials said.

Israel has so far refrained from announcing the decision, but it has already permitted the shipment of flour via Ashdod.

Another proposal by European countries will see ships transferring aid from Cyprus to Gaza via a maritime route.

The plan is for 2,000 tons of aid per vessel to be loaded at the Cypriot port of Larnaca, where it would be checked by a joint committee including Israel, The National News reported January 22.

Warships would then escort the aid vessels to the Gaza coast, it said.

More aid is needed

Israel announced it will permit shipments of flour for Palestinians through Ashdod port, the White House said January 19 after President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke.

The White House said Biden "welcomed the decision," adding that US teams would "separately work on options for more direct maritime delivery of assistance into Gaza."

"We need these shipments to continue and for this port to remain open for aid," Britain's foreign secretary, David Cameron, said on X after the White House announcement about the flour shipments.

On January 21, a total of 260 humanitarian aid trucks were inspected and transferred to Gaza via Kerem Shalom and the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the Israeli Defense Ministry's liaison office with the Palestinians, COGAT, said on X.

But those deliveries have been bogged down by inspections and logistical snarls.

Officials and humanitarian workers say that much more aid is needed to address the severe shortages of food, water and medical supplies in Gaza.

The United Nations (UN) has warned that the risk of famine is growing, clean water is scarce and diseases are spreading.

"More food, more water, more medicine, other essential goods need to get into Gaza," US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on January 10.

He cited UN figures showing that 90% of the population continued to face severe food insecurity, adding: "For children, the effects of long periods without sufficient food can have lifelong consequences."

Flow of aid

Blinken pressed Israeli officials about allowing Gaza aid through the port of Ashdod when he was in Tel Aviv earlier in January, one US official told the NYT on the condition of anonymity.

Three UN agencies -- the World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) -- separately pushed for the opening of Ashdod in a joint statement on January 15, AFP reported.

The use of Ashdod, located some 40km north of the Gaza border, is "critically needed by aid agencies," they said, while calling for a "fundamental step change in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza."

Opening the Ashdod port would reduce the time it takes to transport food to Gazans from the north, WFP's regional director for the Middle East, Corinne Fleischer, told AFP earlier this month.

In December, Israel approved the temporary delivery of aid into Gaza via its southern Kerem Shalom border crossing, opening a new route for supplies after weeks of pressure.

"We've made real progress over the last couple of months in opening up new entry points, including Kerem Shalom," Blinken said on January 10.

"One of the things that we need to see is much better deconfliction once assistance is inside of Gaza so that it can move around, so that the UN can take it where it needs to go, to make sure that they're going to be safe in doing that."

"We want to see this conflict come to an end as quickly as possible," he said.

"We want to do everything we possibly can to increase protections for civilians, to make sure that humanitarian assistance is getting in and getting to people who need it, and that's what we're working on relentlessly every day," he added.

The UN emergency relief chief said in mid-January that the "great majority" of 400,000 Gazans at risk of starving "are actually in famine, not just at risk of famine."

Medicine, mobile clinic

French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on January 22 that he hoped medicines delivered to Gaza would reach "every hostage," nearly a week after the aid shipment arrived in the territory.

"We trust all parties to ensure that these medicines arrive safely... at the destination of every hostage," Lecornu told AFP on a visit to Israel.

"It's our duty to do it," Lecornu said after meeting Netanyahu.

Under a deal brokered by Qatar and France, a Qatari plane carrying medicines arrived on January 17 in the Egyptian city of al-Arish near the Rafah border crossing.

Under the deal, "medicine along with other humanitarian aid is to be delivered to civilians in Gaza... in exchange for delivering medication needed for Israeli captives in Gaza," Qatar's foreign ministry said.

The office of the Israeli prime minister confirmed the deal, under which 45 hostages are expected to receive medication.

France said the drugs would be sent to a hospital in Rafah where they would be handed over to the Red Cross and divided into batches before being transferred to the hostages.

A French warship off the Egyptian coast has also been serving as a mobile clinic for the treatment of wounded Palestinians since November.

The warship has so far received 120 patients, all serious cases who needed long periods of hospitalization, French doctor Marine, who is serving aboard the Dixmude and gave only her first name, told AFP.

Among them was Nesma Abu Gayad, a bright-eyed Palestinian who was seriously injured when her home was shelled.

"I was treated at a few hospitals in Gaza, before arriving in Egypt," she said, the stump of her right foot floating above the ground from her wheelchair.

"The next step will be a prosthetic, but I have to get a referral and travel to get it abroad."