Ships with a second round of aid for Gaza have departed Cyprus as concerns about hunger soar

World Central Kitchen said ships carried enough to prepare more than 1 million meals Also on board were dates, eaten to break the daily Ramadan fast
UN has warned of famine in northern Gaza as early as this month. Top UN court has ordered Israel to open more land crossings to address the crisis

Israel-Gaza war

Associated Press

Published: 2:58am, 31 Mar 2024

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A three-ship convoy left a port in Cyprus on Saturday with 400 tons of food and other supplies for Gaza as concerns about hunger in the territory soar.

World Central Kitchen said the vessels and a barge carried enough to prepare more than 1 million meals from items such as rice, pasta, flour, legumes, tinned vegetables and proteins. Also on board were dates, traditionally eaten to break the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

It was not clear when the ships would reach Gaza. The first ship earlier this month delivered 200 tons of food, water and other aid.

The United Nations and partners have warned of famine in devastated, largely isolated northern Gaza as early as this month. Humanitarian officials say deliveries by sea and air are not enough and that Israel must allow far more aid by road. The top UN court has ordered Israel to open more land crossings and take other measures to address the crisis.

Tents housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah in southern Gaza on the border with Egypt on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Meanwhile, Egypt’s state-run Al Qahera TV said truce negotiations between Israel and Hamas will resume on Sunday, citing an unnamed Egyptian security source. The channel has close ties to the country’s intelligence services.

Just one weeklong ceasefire has been achieved in the war that began after Hamas-led militants stormed across southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 others hostage. On Saturday, some Israelis, including relatives of remaining hostages, again rallied to show frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and urge him to resign.

Nearly six months of war has destroyed critical infrastructure in Gaza including hospitals, schools and homes as well as roads, sewage systems and the electrical grid.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says 32,705 Palestinians have been killed, with 82 bodies taken to hospitals in the past 24 hours. The Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its toll but has said most those killed have been women and children.

Clashes, deadly aid chaos in war-torn Gaza; Israeli strike wounds UN observers

Israel says more than a third of the dead are militants, though it has not provided evidence to support that, and it blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates in residential areas.

Israel’s military on Saturday acknowledged shooting dead two Palestinians and wounding a third on Gaza’s beach, responding to a video broadcast earlier this week by Al Jazeera that showed one man falling to the ground after walking in an open area and a bulldozer pushing two bodies into the rubbish-strewn sand. The military said troops opened fire after the men allegedly ignored warning shots.

The war has displaced more than 80 per cent of Gaza’s population and pushed hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine, the UN and international aid agencies say. Israel’s military said it continued to strike dozens of targets in Gaza, days after the UN Security Council issued its first demand for a ceasefire.

Aid also fell on Gaza. The US military during an airdrop on Friday said it had released more than 100,000 pounds of aid that day and almost a million pounds overall, part of a multi-country effort.

The United States also welcomed the formation of a new Palestinian autonomy government, signalling it was accepting a revised Cabinet line-up as a step towards political reform. The Biden administration has called for “revitalising” the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in the hope that it can also administer Gaza once the war ends.

02:42

Israeli forces open fire on crowd of Palestinians seeking aid,, as Gaza death toll surpasses 30,000

The authority is headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who tapped US-educated economist Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister earlier this month. But both Israel and Hamas – which drove Abbas’ security forces from Gaza in a 2007 takeover – reject the idea of it administering Gaza. The authority also has little popular support or legitimacy among Palestinians because of its security cooperation with Israel in the West Bank.

More than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank or east Jerusalem since October 7, according to local health authorities. Dr Fawaz Hamad, director of Al-Razi Hospital in Jenin, told local station Awda TV that Israeli forces killed a 13-year-old boy in nearby Qabatiya early on Saturday. Israel’s military said the incident was under review.

Israel has said that after the war it will maintain open-ended security control over Gaza and partner with Palestinians who are not affiliated with the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. It is unclear who in Gaza would be willing to take on such a role.

Hamas has warned Palestinians in Gaza against cooperating with Israel to administer the territory, saying anyone who does will be treated as a collaborator, which is understood as a death threat. Hamas calls instead for all Palestinian factions to form a power-sharing government ahead of national elections, which have not taken place in 18 years.