Gaza ‘Freedom Flotilla’ blocked in Turkey
A flotilla aiming to deliver aid to Gaza has been blocked in Turkey after the West African country of Guinea-Bissau withdrew its flagged vessels.
At an Istanbul news conference, about 280 volunteers – activists, lawyers and doctors – who had hoped to join the ships shouted slogans including “Flag the flotilla”, “We will sail” and “Free Palestine”. “Sadly, Guinea-Bissau has allowed itself to become complicit in Israel’s deliberate starvation, illegal siege and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” said the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
“The Guinea-Bissau International Ships Registry (GBISR), in a blatantly political move, informed the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that it had withdrawn the Guinea Bissau flag from two of the Freedom Flotilla’s ships, one of which is our cargo ship, already loaded with over 5,000 tons of life-saving aid,” the coalition said.
The group said the Guinea-Bissau authorities made several “extraordinary” requests for information including destinations, potential additional port calls, cargo manifest, and estimated arrival dates and times.
Three of the flotilla’s ships have been docked for a week at the port of Tuzla, south of Istanbul. They had planned to set sail Friday.
Is this going to work? It would be a lot faster to stop arms shipments and apply sanctions to get aid crossing open
UK ship sets sail to help build Gaza aid pier
Royal Navy support ship Cardigan Bay will assist the international effort to construct the temporary floating pier, which is set to be completed early next month, the US Department of Defense has said.
The pier will initially facilitate the delivery of 90 truckloads of international aid a day into Gaza, rising to up to 150 truckloads once fully operational, according to US estimates.
The aid will be prescreened in Cyprus and delivered directly to Gaza via the pier off the coast or via the Port of Ashdod, which Israel has said it will open to aid vessels.
“It is critical we establish more routes for vital humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza and the UK continues to take a leading role in the delivery of support,” UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said.
UK troops may deliver aid to Gaza from offshore pier: Report
The BBC is reporting that British troops may be tasked with delivering aid to Gaza from an offshore pier now under construction by the US military. UK government officials have so far declined to comment on the report.
According to the BBC, the British government is considering deploying troops to drive the trucks that would carry aid from the pier along a floating causeway to the shore.
A senior US military official had said earlier that there would be no American “boots on the ground” and another nation would provide the personnel to drive the delivery trucks to the shore. The official did not identify the third party.
Early next month now, still weeks away while the spike of over 300 trucks entered was indeed just that, a spike.
And 90 to 150 trucks added is still below the minimum 500 a day needed just to sustain the population, more to scramble back from the brink of starvation and to start repairing the health sector, drinking water, sanitation and shelter.
3rd shipment from Cyprus is finally underway (after the 2nd lead to the deaths of WCK workers) However...
Ship with 400 tons of food aid destined for Gaza has left Cyprus
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/27/middleeast/gaza-aid-ship-leaves-cyprus-intl/index.html
A desperately needed shipment of food aid destined for Gaza departed from Cyprus on Saturday, weeks after humanitarian efforts in the besieged enclave were severely disrupted following a deadly Israeli airstrike which killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) workers.
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The ship, called “Jennifer,” departed Larnaca Port in Cyprus at 9 a.m. local (2 a.m. ET) and will take around 25 to 30 hours to arrive at Israel’s Ashdod port, according to ANERA’s emergency response team lead in the West Bank, Mohenad Itayam.
Itayam told CNNthe 400 tons of aid would undergo Israeli security clearance upon arrival. From there, it will be loaded onto trucks that will then go south to the Kerem Shalom border crossing before entering Gaza.
That was not the point of the ship corridor, it's just adding to the line-up at the Kerem Shalom crossing. Can't even use the crossing in the North that would be opened immediately after the WCK murders.
ANERA prefers to use the Erez crossing into Gaza, but it is not ready to receive trucks for aid, Itayam told CNN, adding that the aid agency is hopeful it will open in a week to 10 days.
Israel has completed negated aid by ship from Cypres and successfully blocked the much bigger shipment from Turkey. Meanwhile the ICJ and UNSC have both long ago ordered Israel to improve aid delivery, they're still doing the exact opposite.
