A ship loaded with 1,200 tonnes of food for Gaza approached the Israeli port of Ashdod on Tuesday in a renewed effort to alleviate the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Strip as famine threatens the territory.
The Panamanian-flagged vessel was screened by Israeli officials at the Cypriot port of Limassol before departing. It’s carrying food aid such as pasta, rice, baby food and canned goods.
Around 700 tonnes of the aid is from Cyprus, purchased with money donated by the United Arab Emirates to the so-called Amalthea Fund, set up last year for donors to help with seaborne aid.
The rest comes from Italy, the Maltese government, a Catholic religious order in Malta and the Kuwaiti nongovernmental organisation Al Salam Association.
Cyprus’ Foreign Ministry said the aid effort is being led by the United Nations but is a coordinated effort. Once offloaded in Israel, UN employees would arrange for the aid to be trucked to storage areas and food stations operated by the World Central Kitchen.
The charity is widely trusted in Gaza and was behind the first aid shipment to Gaza from Cyprus last year aboard a tug-towed barge.
Shipborne deliveries can bring in much larger quantities of aid than the air drops several countries have been making into Gaza.
Dozens killed in Gaza
At least 26 people were killed in Gaza on Tuesday, according to local hospitals.
That figure reportedly includes at least eight people killed in Israeli attacks on tents housing displaced people in Khan Younis and four more in an attack on a tent in Deir al-Balah.
The deaths come the day after a Hamas source said the group had accepted the latest ceasefire proposal in Gaza. Israeli officials have not yet responded.
Israel had announced plans to occupy Gaza City and other heavily populated areas after ceasefire talks stalled last month.
The move drew international condemnation and raised fears of a worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which experts say is sliding into famine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed reports of starvation as “lies” spread by Hamas. However, the UN last week warned that levels of malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began.
Record number of aid workers killed
Meanwhile, a record 383 aid workers were killed across the world in 2024, with nearly half of them killed in Gaza, the UN humanitarian office said on Tuesday.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said the record number of killings must be a wakeup call to protect civilians in conflict zones as well as those trying to help them.
“Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy,” Fletcher said in a statement.
“As the humanitarian community, we demand – again – that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account.”
President of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Younis al-Khatib, said in a video posted on X that: “The Palestinian humanitarian mission and aid workers have been deliberately targeted in Palestine. More than any other war, Palestinian humanitarians have been killed.”
“No state should enjoy impunity. No state should be above the law. The international community is obliged to protect humanitarians and to stop and to ensure protection for humanity.”
The Aid Worker Security Database said the number of aid worker killings rose from 293 in 2023 to 383 in 2024, including over 180 in Gaza.
The figures this year show no sign of a reversal of the upward trend, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
There have been 245 major attacks since the year began and 265 aid workers have been killed so far, according to the database.
One of the deadliest attacks of 2025 took place on March 23 in the southern Gazan city of Rafah. Israeli troops killed 15 medics and emergency responders. Their bodies were later uncovered in what the UN described as a “mass grave.”