The European Union is backing a long-awaited maritime corridor allowing aid to be shipped from Cyprus to the coast of Gaza, European Commission Ursula von der Leyen confirmed during a visit to the port of Larnaca on Friday.
The Cyprus-led initiative, named ‘Amalthea’, is backed by Western and Arab partners including the US and the United Arab Emirates.
It will allow a surge in humanitarian aid deliveries, which have been severely constricted by the land routes controlled by Israel since the outbreak of the war.
Speaking in Larnaca, on the south coast of Cyprus, von der Leyen said that the EU executive could also consider further options, including the parachuting of humanitarian cargo into Gaza. The bloc has already pledged €250 million in aid to Palestinians this year.
“The maritime corridor can make a real difference to the plight of the Palestinian people, but in parallel, our efforts to provide humanitarian assistance through all possible routes will continue,” the Commission president said in a joint press conference with Cyprus’ president Nikos Christodoulides.
The sea corridor is due to formally open this weekend, with a first pilot operation to leave either on Satrday or Sunday, when the right conditions are in place.
It comes just hours after President Biden confirmed in his annual State of the Union speech that the US will set up a port on the Gaza coast to ramp up the delivery of lifesaving aid.
Plans to open a maritime corridor into Gaza were first made public by French President Emmanuel Macron following the European Council summit in late October.
But senior Cypriot diplomats told Euronews that the plan did not materialise until the US intervened, using their diplomatic weight to convince Israel to allow the Gazan coast to be used for humanitarian purposes.
Our journalists are working on this story and will update it as soon as more information becomes available.