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The Telegraph
The Telegraph
16 Mar 2024
Abbie Cheeseman


Watch: First food aid shipment by sea to Gaza is unloaded on beach

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Food aid was unloaded on a Gaza beach yesterday after the first sea delivery using a new aid route across the eastern Mediterranean.

The shipment of 200 tonnes of food by the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity was a pilot for future shipments to the territory, which is on the brink of famine with millions going hungry.

“That shipment includes pallets of canned goods and bulk product, including beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil and salt,” WCK said.

The charity had to build a jetty on the beach in southern Gaza with material from destroyed buildings and rubble, but the US military has plans to construct a temporary pier for future shipments.

WCK workers unload food aid on to the makeshift jetty they constructed on the beach
WCK workers unload food aid on to the makeshift jetty they constructed on the beach Credit: WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Video footage provided by the Israeli army showed military personnel helping to coordinate the shipment and its unloading.

Details of where and when the first distribution of food aid will take place are scant.

According to José Andrés, the founder of WCK, the plans are being kept private to stop a repeat of the Feb 29 incident that saw Israeli troops firing on a large crowd of Palestinians racing to pull food off an aid convoy in Gaza City. More than 100 people died, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

WCK is preparing a second boat with 240 tonnes of food to set sail from Cyprus once the first distribution has been carried out successfully.

Mr Andrés, a Spanish-American chef and restaurateur, posted on X on Friday that the first shipment was “a test” and that the charity could bring in thousands of tonnes of food each week.

While the aid was welcomed in Gaza, aid groups say that maritime and air-dropped aid should be complementary to land deliveries, not a substitute, as they are far less efficient.

“States cannot hide behind airdrops and efforts to open a maritime corridor to create the illusion that they are doing enough to support the needs in Gaza,” a joint statement from 25 NGOs said, calling on governments to prioritise a ceasefire and land-based aid deliveries.

Small boats pull up to the barge to ferry the aid to the shore
Small boats pull up to the barge to ferry the aid to the shore Credit: AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/ISRAELI ARMY

The food aboard the first ship was intended for distribution in northern Gaza, where 300,000 people have been mostly cut off by Israeli forces since October.

Israel vehemently denies charges by aid agencies that it has been routinely blocking aid and has placed the blame squarely on the United Nations.

One in three children under the age of two in the northern Gaza Strip is now suffering from acute malnutrition, UNICEF said on Saturday, in what they described as a “staggering escalation” from 15.6 per cent in January.