Aid boat bound for Gaza as UN agency chief decries 'war on children'

A Spanish charity boat taking food to Gaza left Cyprus on Tuesday in hopes of opening a maritime corridor to carry sorely needed aid to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

In a sign of worsening humanitarian conditions more than five months into the war, the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said "the death toll from malnutrition and dehydration rose to 27", most of them children.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, called for a ceasefire "now for the sake of children in Gaza", even as mediator Qatar said the warring sides were "not near" a new truce deal.

In a post on social media platform X, Lazzarini cited U.N. and Gaza health ministry figures that suggest more children had been killed in Gaza between October and February "than the number of children killed in four years of wars around the world combined".

"This war is a war on children," he said.

The Open Arms aid boat which set sail from Larnaca port on the Mediterranean is part of efforts to diversify aid access into Gaza, as the flow of trucks has slowed.

Some Western and Arab governments have opted for more aid airdrops, the latest announced Tuesday by Jordan and the United States.

Morocco has sent a plane loaded with 40 tonnes of relief supplies directly to Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, a diplomatic source said, a bid to bypass bottlenecks on the Egypt-Gaza border blamed in part on cumbersome Israeli inspections.

The Moroccan aid would be transferred via Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, the source said.

The U.N. aid coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, and head of the United Nations Office for Project Services, Jorge Moreira da Silva, said in a joint statement they "welcome...