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After the first shipment of aid arrives by sea, supporters of the suffering people in the Gaza Strip are faced with the task of distributing much-needed food rations to the desperate people. The ship “Open Arms” with a cargo of 200 tons of food was anchored off the coast of the closed coastal area on Friday, the organization involved in the mission “World Central Kitchen” (WCK) announced on the X platform (formerly Twitter ). Meanwhile, the US, as Israel’s main ally, is increasing pressure on the country’s government to prevent a catastrophe in the event of a military offensive in the border city of Rafah and to ensure the protection of civilians there. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected in the crisis region this weekend.

Food and drinking water were brought to shore from a floating platform that the Open Arms towed hundreds of kilometers across the sea to Gaza, according to the Israeli army, which secured the coastal landing site. 60 kitchens that WCK operates together with local partners are intended to prepare and distribute meals to hungry people. In total, more than 37 million meals have been provided by sea and air in the ongoing conflict in Gaza, the aid agency said.

54-year-old WCK boss José Andrés, a celebrity chef of Spanish descent living in the US, founded the humanitarian organization in 2010. It provides meals to people in disaster areas around the world. There were also relief efforts at the border with Poland for Ukrainian refugees, among others.

The ‘Open Arms’ mission is considered a pilot project to better supply the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, who currently lack almost everything as a result of the war. The ship was sailing along a planned aid corridor announced by leaders of the European Commission and Cyprus a week ago. In addition, the US is planning a maritime corridor to Gaza, for which the US military will build a floating dock near the Gaza coast.

Young children suffer from acute malnutrition

The humanitarian emergency in Gaza has been worsening for weeks. According to the UN children’s fund Unicef, 31 percent of children under the age of two in the northern Gaza Strip are now acutely malnourished. In January, this concerned 15.6 percent of the children, the organization announced on Friday. In the north of the Palestinian coastal area, the supply crisis is particularly acute due to the ongoing war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas.

The Gaza war was sparked by a massacre carried out on October 7 by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups in southern Israel. More than 1,200 people were killed on the Israeli side, and the terrorists kidnapped another 250 as hostages in the Gaza Strip. Israel responded with massive air strikes and a ground offensive in the densely populated area on the Mediterranean Sea.

So far, 31,490 Palestinians have been killed in the war and another 73,439 have been injured, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority. The figures cannot be independently verified and do not distinguish between armed combatants and civilians. At the same time, according to authorities, these figures do not include a large number of people believed to still be under the rubble.

Are peace efforts moving?

A new proposal from Hamas as part of the slow indirect negotiations on a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages seems to give rise to cautious optimism. “The proposal falls broadly within the framework of the deal we have been working on for several months,” John Kirby, communications director for the US National Security Council, said at the White House on Friday. It is good that Israel is now sending another delegation to the negotiations, that Hamas’s proposal exists and that it is being discussed. However, the devil is in the details.

In fact, Hamas has now taken steps to no longer demand that Israel end the war before the first hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Under the proposal announced Thursday, the Islamists would make Israel’s cessation of hostage taking a condition for a second phase of hostage releases. In doing so, Hamas moved closer to the contents of a multi-phase plan that mediators US, Egypt and Qatar presented several weeks ago and which Israel accepted.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed Hamas’s proposal as “unrealistic.” At the same time, it was said that an Israeli delegation would travel to Qatar following a security cabinet debate on Israel’s position. It would be the first time in two weeks that Israeli negotiators would take part in the indirect talks in the capital Doha.

The US government wants to see Israel’s plans to protect civilians in Rafah

The US government on Friday called on Israel to submit plans for a “credible” and “feasible” evacuation from the city of Rafah, located in the southern Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, if an Israeli military offensive is to take place. over there. US Security Council spokesman Kirby said they had not seen such plans before and would welcome the opportunity to see them. “We cannot and will not support any plan that does not sufficiently take into account these one and a half million refugees in Gaza,” he stressed. There has to be a plan for these people; anything else would be a “catastrophe,” he warned. There must be a place for the people of the Gaza Strip where they are safe from the fighting.

Netanyahu had previously approved plans for a military operation in Rafah on Friday, according to his office. In addition to operational operations, the military is preparing for the evacuation of the civilian population, the statement said.

Outlook for Saturday

Chancellor Scholz (SPD) leaves this Saturday for a two-day trip to the Middle East. As government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit announced in Berlin on Friday, Scholz will first visit Jordan and then travel to Israel. This is the Chancellor’s second trip to the region since the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. Berlin, like Washington, is critical of the Israeli government’s Rafah plans. During his trip, Scholz will meet Netanyahu and Jordanian King Abdullah II, among others. According to the government spokesperson, the topics of discussion are the situation in the crisis area and the airlift for the distressed population. (saw/sda/dpa)