A first boat loaded with 200 tons of food, which left Cyprus on Tuesday, is progressing slowly on Thursday towards the Gaza Strip at a time when efforts are accelerating to try to deliver more humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory and threatened with famine. This boat from the Spanish NGO Open Arms, which tows a barge, was traveling at low speed this Thursday morning off the coast of Israel, according to the specialist site Marine Traffic. Cyprus, about 370 kilometers from Palestinian territory, announced that a second boat was ready to leave with a larger cargo.
The distribution of aid within Gaza itself remains hazardous. After more than five months of war between Israel and Hamas, the UN fears widespread famine in the Gaza Strip, where tens of thousands of people have already been killed and where Israeli bombardments continue without respite.
Information to remember
⇒ Nasrallah believes that Israel is too weakened to launch a war against Lebanon
⇒ Deadly strike targets UN warehouse in Gaza
⇒ Amnesty denounces the “weakness” of the international community
Hezbollah leader considers Israel too weakened to launch war against Lebanon
The leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, whose party has exchanged fire with Israel for months in support of Palestinian Hamas, said on Wednesday that Israel was too weakened to launch a war against Lebanon. “The Israeli army is exhausted […] on the northern front, in the West Bank and Gaza,” said the leader of the Islamist movement, Hassan Nasrallah, in a televised speech.
These comments come as Israel launches air raids deeper and deeper into Lebanese territory, against positions of the powerful Hezbollah, accentuating the threats of open war. “This enemy and the society of this enemy are showing signs of fatigue,” he continued, estimating that the Israeli army “lacked the manpower” to start a war against Lebanon. In particular, he once again accused the Israeli army of imposing “media censorship” regarding the real number of soldiers killed in exchanges of fire with his pro-Iranian formation.
The UN announces that a deadly strike targeted one of its warehouses in Gaza
On Wednesday, UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for aiding Palestinian refugees, announced that one of its warehouses in Rafah, in southern Gaza, had been hit by an Israeli strike which killed at least at least one of its employees and injured 22. The Hamas Ministry of Health reported four deaths. The Israeli army announced for its part that it had “eliminated a terrorist” from Hamas in this targeted strike in Rafah. This man, Mohammad Abou Hasna, is also among the four deaths recorded by the Islamist movement which presents him as a police official responsible for the security of the warehouse.
“Today’s attack on one of the few UNRWA distribution centers still functional in the Gaza Strip comes at a time when malnutrition, even famine in certain areas, is spreading” in the territory. , denounced the head of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, quoted in a press release.
Amnesty denounces the “weakness” of the international community
The plan to build a port to deliver humanitarian aid to the population of Gaza constitutes “a sign of powerlessness and weakness on the part of the international community”, denounced Agnès Callamard, the head of Amnesty International (AI) on Wednesday. . “The airdrop, the construction of a port, are signs of helplessness and weakness on the part of the international community,” declared the secretary general of AI during a press conference in Madrid.
“The international community must be prepared to hold Israel accountable,” she said of the problems in delivering aid by road using the crossing points between Israel and the Gaza Strip. “We are not using the stick that will stop these violations,” continued Agnès Callamard, who spoke in English. “At the same time, we continue to transfer weapons” to Israel, she added. “This is truly unacceptable.”
Israel must make humanitarian aid to Gaza its ‘number one’ priority, says Blinken
Israel must make the protection of civilians and humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip its “number one” priority, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. “We expect the Israeli government to make this issue a priority. Protecting civilians, getting people the help they need, that has to be the number one priority, even if they do what is necessary to defend the country and face the threat posed by Hamas,” Antony Blinken told reporters.
The head of American diplomacy was speaking after a closed-door meeting on aid to Gaza, bringing together Cyprus, the Emirates, Qatar and the European Union, shortly after having met with the High EU Representative Josep Borrell, at State Department headquarters.