A ship carrying almost 200 tonnes of food for Gaza left Cyprus on Tuesday in a pilot project to open a new sea route to deliver aid to Palestinians on the brink of famine, as prospects faded for a ceasefire during the holy month of Ramazan.
The charity ship Open Arms was seen sailing out of Larnaca port in Cyprus, towing a barge containing flour, rice and protein.
The journey to Gaza takes about 15 hours but a heavy tow barge could make the trip considerably longer, possibly up to 2 days. Cyprus is just over 200 miles (320 km) north-west of Gaza.
The US military said its vessel, the General Frank S. Besson, was also en route to provide humanitarian relief to Gaza by sea. The US military also said it had parachuted more than 27,600 meals and 25,900 bottles of water into northern Gaza.
The UN estimates a quarter of the population in the pulverised enclave are at risk of starvation, and aid is barely scratching the surface of daily needs. The UN has previously accused Israel of blocking aid to Gaza.
Jordanian state media said there had been seven humanitarian air drops on Monday, with Jordan, the US, Egypt, France and Belgium participating. Morocco was also scheduled to join the effort, Israeli media reported.
The conflict has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, with many cramped into makeshift tents with little in the way of food or basic medical supplies in the southern city of Rafah.
Palestinian media reported that seven Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in Israeli gunfire when crowds were awaiting aid trucks at the Kuwait Square in Gaza City early on Tuesday.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has appealed for a truce, the release of hostages and the removal of obstacles to life-saving aid. He said a threatened Israeli assault on Rafah could put the people of Gaza in “an even deeper circle of hell”.
Fighters from Hamas, which administers Gaza, killed 1,200 people in an Oct. 7 attack on Israel and took 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies, an assault that sparked one of the bloodiest wars in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza authorities, while infrastructure has been obliterated.
Negotiations on a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas remain deadlocked in Cairo. Israel says any ceasefire must be temporary and that its goal remains the destruction of Hamas. Hamas says it will release hostages only as part of a deal that ends the war.
Hopes of a ceasefire for Ramazan were dashed on Monday when an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City killed 16 people and wounded several others, Palestinian health officials said.
Israel also killed two Palestinians in an airstrike on a house in the southern city of Khan Younis as residents were breaking the first day of the Ramazan fast, Gaza health officials said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on those incidents, but said its forces killed about 15 militants in central Gaza and that commandos targeted sites believed to be used by Hamas fighters in Khan Younis.
Pro-Palestinian groups elsewhere continued to make their presence felt. Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it had launched several drones at an outpost in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Monday.
The US Central Command said early on Tuesday that Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea toward merchant vessel Pinocchio, adding that there was no injuries or damage reported.
