A charity ship towing a barge loaded with 200 tons of aid bound for Gaza departed from a port on the south coast of Cyprus on Tuesday, after a four-day delay.

The Open Arms, a 120-foot Spanish-registered salvage/rescue vessel "loaded with food for Palestinian families on the brink of famine," set sail via a new Cyprus-Gaza sea corridor set up to ship aid into the war-torn enclave, World Central Kitchen, the U.S. charity behind the mission said in a post on X.

"We have served 35 million meals in Gaza and the maritime corridor will allow us to provide millions more," said WCK community outreach manager Juan Camilo.

The organization's founder, Chef Jose Andres wrote on social media that construction of a jetty on the Gaza coast that WCK will use to offload the aid was "well underway" with the help of its partners on the ground in the strip.

He said the goal of the mission, for which the United Arab Emirates has provided the bulk of the funding, was "to establish a highway of boats and barges stocked with millions of meals continuously headed towards Gaza."

"We may fail, but the biggest failure will be not trying. Thank you to all that made it possible….we could bring millions of meals a day. The people of the north will be fed!" Andres said.

"Let this moment at the beginning of Ramadan be a good omen, for peace in the Middle East."

WCK, which has set up a joint operation in the port city of Larnaca with Spanish refugee charity Open Arms to stockpile, pack and palletize rice, flour, legumes, canned vegetables, and canned fish and meat, said in a news release that it had a further 500 tons of supplies ready to go.

The vessel had been scheduled to set sail Friday night on a pilot mission, timed to coincide with the announcement by the European Union, Britain, the United Arab Emirates and United States of a new Cyprus-Gaza maritime corridor to ship aid to a temporary port the United States is constructing on the coast of Gaza.

The sailing was postponed first to Monday and then Tuesday, due to 'technical difficulties' surrounding the offloading of the aid once it arrived off the coast of Gaza due to the fact construction work on the port the United States is building has yet to begin.

A U.S. Army logistics support vessel is en route from the United States with rapid deployment forces, equipment and materiel to build a temporary pier onto which aid ships can offload humanitarian supplies but is not expected to arrive in the region for another two weeks.

The General Frank S. Besson set sail from Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia on Saturday, less than 36 hours after U.S. President Joe Biden's pledge to build the facility to get aid into Gaza by sea in his State of the Union address to Congress on Thursday.

Bernie Sanders leads Democrats in call for Joe Biden to ensure aid reaches Gaza
 Washington DC (UPI) Mar 12, 2024 –

Eight senators on Tuesday issued a letter to President Joe Biden, calling on him to "enforce federal law" by requiring Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "to stop restricting humanitarian aid access to Gaza or forfeit U.S. military aid to Israel."

"The severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is nearly unprecedented in modern history," began a letter sent out and signed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., along with seven other of his colleagues.

The majority Democrat senators — with the exception being Sanders as an independent — contend in the letter that Netanuyahu's government is obligated to expand access for humanitarian aid in Gaza under the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.

Joining Sanders as signatories to the letter were Sens. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Peter Welch, D-Vt., Tina Smith, D-Minn., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Ben Ray Lujan, a New Mexico Democrat.

The lawmakers say that Israel's interference in humanitarian aid operations in Gaza violates Section 6201 of the Foreign Assistance Act.

"No assistance shall be furnished under this chapter or the Arms Export Control Act to any country when it is made known to the president that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance," Section 6201 states in the 1961 law, which Sanders cited as he urged the president on Tuesday to invoke the law.

In the letter, the senators gave reminder of comments made by the president and vice president in recent days, saying how the Biden administration "has repeatedly stated, and the United Nations and numerous aid organizations have confirmed, that Israel's restrictions on humanitarian access, both at the border and within Gaza, are one of the primary causes of this humanitarian catastrophe."

It was reported last week that crucial aid of 14 World Food Program trucks for Gaza citizens was blocked and turned away by Israeli Defense Forces even as U.N reports of starvation among Palestinians continue. The WFP aid blockage by the IDF came days after Vice President Kamala Harris called for an "immediate cease-fire" in order to allow aid into Gaza.

Sanders on March 3 first wrote to Biden to ask that he invoke Section 6201, urging the president in his original letter "to implement this law and make it clear to Israel that, if aid access is not immediately opened up, [Biden] will impose consequences under the Foreign Assistance Act and stop military assistance to Israel."

While on the TV news program Face The Nation on Sunday, Sanders was asked if he thought Biden would halt or condition aid to Israel.

The Vermont senator and former presidential candidate responded that he thinks it "was the right thing to do" at the time, adding that "you can't beg Netanyahu, you've got to tell him — if you want any money, you [have] to change your policy, allow the trucks to come in to feed the children."