Charity says 1st maritime aid shipment to Gaza fully unloaded, is being readied for distribution

A charity says its team in Gaza has finished unloading the first maritime aid shipment to reach the enclave since the start of the war.

“All cargo was offloaded and is being readied for distribution in Gaza,” World Central Kitchen says in a statement, noting that the aid was “almost 200 tons of food.”

WCK constructed a makeshift jetty that would allow the flat-bottomed barge to approach Gaza’s shallow waters for lack of proper port infrastructure.

There are few details on how the aid delivery and distribution will work once it is ready to unload in Gaza, with UN relief agencies having described huge obstacles to getting relief supplies to those in need.

Israel has been under increasing pressure to allow more aid into Gaza. The United States has joined other countries in airdropping supplies to the isolated region of northern Gaza and has announced separate plans to construct a pier to get aid in.

Aid groups say the airdrops and sea shipments are far less efficient ways of delivering the massive amounts of aid needed in Gaza. Instead, the groups have called on Israel to guarantee safe corridors for truck convoys.

The EU’s humanitarian aid and crisis management chief Janez Lenarcic said Thursday that there were already pockets of famine in the enclave, and warned it could spread to the whole region.