Ramadan brings no relief as war rages in Gaza Strip

World Central Kitchen and Open Arms are ‘ready to sail for Gaza’ from Cyprus with food aid on a new maritime corridor.

The Open Arms vessel, centre, in the Cypriot port of Larnaca. Picture: AFP

The first day of Ramadan on Monday arrived like every other for Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza: stalked by famine and disease, shivering in tents and threatened by bombs more than five months into fighting between Israel and Hamas militants.

As the Muslim world welcomed the holy month and its customary daytime fast, many Gazans faced bombardment that saw residents once more search the rubble of destroyed homes for survivors and bodies.

A UN report, citing the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, said 25 people had now died from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children.

“We are running out of time,” Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Program, said on Monday. “If we do not exponentially increase the size of aid going into the northern areas” of Gaza, she said, “famine is imminent.”

A displaced Palestinian bakes bread to break the fast on the first day of Ramadan, in Rafah. Picture: AFP

The UN has reported difficulty in accessing northern Gaza for deliveries of food and other aid.

Gazans throughout the territory are feeling shortages even more during Ramadan. “We don’t know what we are going to eat to break the fast,” Zaki Abu Mansour, 63, said inside his tent.

“I have only a tomato and a ­cucumber... and I have no money to buy anything.”

Any goods available are sold at exorbitant prices, residents say.

Fighting raged across Gaza, even as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “silencing the guns” during the Muslim holy month and said he was “appalled and outraged that conflict is continuing”.

Mr Guterres also appealed for removal of “all obstacles” to aid delivery.

A picture taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing over Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on Sunday. Picture: AFP

With aid entering Gaza by truck far below pre-war levels, and Gazans increasingly desperate, foreign governments have turned to airdrops and are now trying to operate a maritime aid corridor.

Jose Andres said his American charity World Central Kitchen and its partner Open Arms were “ready to sail for Gaza” from Cyprus with food aid on the new maritime corridor that the EU had hoped could open last Sunday. “There have been many statements made about the maritime corridor being open, and the timeline,” Mr Andres said on X.

“WCK never announced departure dates.”

A senior US administration official has said the Cyprus initiative provided a platform at the port of Larnaca for “screening by Israeli officials of Gaza-bound goods”.

Palestinians search for their belongings amid the rubble in Rafah. Picture: AFP

Cypriot government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said “this is an initiative, the complexity of which requires both due care and attention so that the ship can depart and the cargo can safely reach the civilian population of Gaza”.

President Joe Biden last week order the US military to build a temporary port in the Gaza Strip to allow the landing of aid there.

Israel’s cumbersome screenings are a major reason current shortages are so glaring, aid workers say. Israel blames problems on the Palestinian side, saying the “ability of humanitarian organisations within the Gaza Strip to absorb the aid” dictates how much of it is let in.

Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesman, on Monday said a weekend airstrike on an underground compound in central Gaza had targeted Marwan Issa, deputy head of Hamas’s armed wing. Results of the strike were still being examined, he said, and it was unclear whether Issa was killed.

Hamas authorities reported at least 67 people killed since Sunday, with more than 40 airstrikes across the territory. Hamas’s Oct­ober 7 attack that started the war resulted in about 1200 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians.

Bodies of victims of an Israeli strike are unloaded in Rafah. Picture: Getty Images

The militants also took around 250 hostages, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes 99 hostages still in Gaza remain alive and 31 have died.

Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive has killed 31,112 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The US and other countries again airdropped aid into northern Gaza on Monday, but outgoing Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said it could be delivered more efficiently via five land borders.

Weeks of talks involving US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators failed to bring about a truce and hostage exchange deal ahead of Ramadan.

AFP