An emergency ship on a new sea corridor from Cyprus began unloading much-needed food in Gaza on Friday as Hamas proposed a new six-week truce in the war.
AFP footage shows Open your arms, The ship set sail from Cyprus on Tuesday, towing a barge that the Spanish charity of the same name said was carrying 200 tons of food to feed Gazans threatened by famine after more than five months of war.
US charity World Central Kitchen, which works with Open Arms, said it was preparing another ship at the Cyprus port of Larnaca to carry beans, canned meat, flour, rice and dates, but stressed the need for more road access to deliver aid to Gaza.
“Our goal is to create an aid highway to Gaza,” the group’s Juan Camilo Jimenez said in a video posted on social media platform X.
The Israeli military said it had deployed troops “to protect the area around the dock” while aid was unloaded. “The ship underwent a comprehensive safety inspection,” the statement said.
A spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled region said earlier on Saturday that 123 people had died across Gaza in the past 24 hours, 36 of them in an attack on a house housing displaced people in central Nuserat .
Witnesses said air strikes and fighting took place in Khan Younis, the main city in the south of the Gaza Strip, and in the northern areas, and the humanitarian situation was particularly severe.
Thousands of people attended prayers at the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as Muslim worshipers celebrated the first Friday of Ramadan, but security forces were heavily guarded and entry was restricted.
Amjad Ghalib, 44, said: “This is the first time I’ve seen so many troops (police), and their eyes… Two years ago, I could argue with them, But now… they won’t give us a chance.” Year-old carpenter.
In Rafah in southern Gaza, the last major population center that has not yet suffered a ground attack, AFP footage showed worshipers praying near the ruins of a destroyed mosque.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday he had approved the military’s plan to launch an operation in Rafah, where much of the Gaza Strip’s population seeks asylum, but did not provide details or a timetable.
White House officials said an attack on Rafah would be a “red line” without a credible civilian protection plan, which they said they had not yet seen Netanyahu approve.
“We certainly welcome the opportunity to see it,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the U.S. would not support any effort without a “credible” proposal to provide asylum for more than one million Gazans. plan.
“obstacles” to peace
Hamas has made a new offer for a six-week ceasefire and swap dozens of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in talks aimed at reaching a new truce and hostage deal, a Hamas official told AFP .
Hamas hopes this will lead to “a complete withdrawal of (Israel’s) troops from the Gaza Strip and a permanent ceasefire,” the official said.
The official said the proposal would involve the release of about 42 hostages who would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners, a ratio of 20 to 50 prisoners per hostage, down from a previous proposal of about 100 to one.
Palestinian militants seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages in a Hamas attack on October 7, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes about 130 prisoners remain in Gaza, 32 of whom are presumed dead.
Israel said it would send a delegation to Qatar for a new round of negotiations.
White House officials said they were “cautiously optimistic” about the possibility of a ceasefire but stressed that talks were far from over.
“We are cautiously optimistic that things are moving in the right direction,” Kirby said, adding that the Hamas proposal was “within the scope of what negotiators have discussed in recent months.”
The United States, which provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, has become increasingly critical of Netanyahu’s handling of the war.
US Senate leader Chuck Schumer called for early elections in Israel and described Netanyahu as one of several “major obstacles” to peace in a speech praised by US President Joe Biden.
“I think he expressed serious concerns, not just for himself but for many Americans,” Biden said.
Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party countered that Israel was “not a banana republic but an independent and proud democracy.”
Dying “to keep my family alive”
The United Nations has repeatedly warned of looming famine, but only a fraction of the supplies needed to sustain Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been allowed in.
With fewer rescue trucks coming in by road, rescue efforts by air and sea have multiplied.
Cyprus, the EU member state closest to Gaza, also said it was preparing a second, larger aid ship.
“God willing, they will bring food to the children, that’s all we ask for,” displaced Gazan Abu Issa Ibrahim Fifil told AFP.
Hamas’ attack on October 7 killed approximately 1,200 people.
According to the Health Ministry, Israeli retaliation against Hamas has resulted in the deaths of at least 31,490 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.
On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry accused Israeli forces of opening fire from “tanks and helicopters” on Palestinians waiting for aid at a Gaza City roundabout, killing 20 people and wounding dozens more.
The Israeli military denied firing into the crowd.
A military statement said “armed Palestinians opened fire as Gazan civilians waited for an aid convoy to arrive” and then “continued shooting as the Gaza crowd began looting trucks.”
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