Turkish Red Crescent shipping 3,000 tons of aid to Gaza, largest package yet

Agency says shipload of food, medicine and equipment sent to Sinai port will be delivered via 200 trucks through Rafah crossing, with the ship to make another journey in 2 weeks

By Reuters and ToI Staff 7 March 2024, 3:08 pm Edit
Illustrative: Palestinians transport bags of flour as humanitarian aid arrives in Gaza City on March 6, 2024. (AFP)
Illustrative: Palestinians transport bags of flour as humanitarian aid arrives in Gaza City on March 6, 2024. (AFP)

Turkey’s Kizilay (Red Crescent) is sending its biggest aid shipment yet to Gaza via Egypt, with a ship carrying some 3,000 tons of food, medicine and equipment leaving for the Egyptian port of Al-Arish on Thursday.

Turkey, which has harshly criticized Israel for its military offensive in Gaza and backed measures to have it tried for genocide at the World Court, has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and warned of the consequences if calm cannot be achieved by the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, starting on Sunday.

“This aid, which will be delivered to Gaza with the support and cooperation of the Egyptian Red Crescent, will keep the hopes of Palestinians alive on the eve of Ramadan,” Turkey’s ambassador to Cairo, Salih Mutlu Sen, said on social media platform X.

Kizilay head Fatma Meric Yilmaz told broadcaster, CNN Turk, that the ship would make two trips to Egypt to deliver the aid, largely collected through donations.

It will then be transported in around 200 trucks to the border town of Rafah in Gaza, where more than one million people have taken refuge, she added. The aid includes flour, hygiene products, ready-to-eat meals, ambulances and portable kitchens.

“We have almost enough aid collected to fill the second ship too,” she said. “Once the ship returns here, we will fill it up again and the ship will then go again around the 26th [of March] near the middle of Ramadan.”

Turkey has already sent thousands of tons of aid to Egypt for delivery to Gaza.

Unlike its Western allies and some Gulf nations, NATO member Turkey does not view Hamas, which runs Gaza, as a terrorist organization.

War erupted when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern communities on October 7, murdering 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 253 hostages to Gaza.

In Gaza, the humanitarian situation is worst in the north of the enclave, which is largely beyond the reach of aid agencies or news cameras. Whole swaths of the territory are cut off from food, with the already curtailed aid supplies to the rest of Gaza dwindling to barely a trickle over the past month.

Israel says it does not restrict humanitarian or medical aid and has blamed the lack of deliveries on the capacity of aid agencies, repeatedly saying that it is approving more aid trucks for crossing than the agencies are able to deliver.

Trucks carrying aid into Gaza have intermittently been held up by Israeli protesters demonstrating against sending humanitarian aid to the Strip while hostages remained in Hamas captivity.

Last week, the United States started dropping aid on Gaza by air, with the Netherlands, France, and others contributing. Turkey has not voiced eagerness to join the air drops so far. A Turkish defense ministry official told reporters on Thursday that Ankara’s aid efforts for Gaza by air would continue via Egypt and Jordan in line with needs and demands.

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