New aid shipment leaves Cyprus for Gaza

By Nathan Morley

This is the second delivery of aid to Gaza from Larnaca since a new marine corridor was introduced earlier this month.

Again, the aid will be unloaded at an improvised pier built on the Gaza coast from debris salvaged from collapsed buildings.

The food, mostly flour, rice, and sugar, was finally loaded onto the vessel just before the weekend. Under an accord reached with Israel for the lifting of the 2007 sea blockade of Gaza, Israeli security representatives inspected aid items before loading.

Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, and France have met in Cairo to discuss joint efforts at resolving the humanitarian crisis and finding a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Elsewhere, a few days ago, a United Nations expert told the UN’s Human rights council that she believed that Israel’s military offensive in Gaza amounts to genocide.

Presenting a new report, Francesca Albanese, the special expert on the occupied territories, said the threshold indicating genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza had been met.

Last week, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ordered Israel to do whatever is necessary to ensure that basic aid gets to the Palestinian population.

Israel launched a massive offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in retaliation against a Hamas attack in southern Israel last year, during which about 1,200 people lost their lives and more than 250 people were abducted as hostages.