Food aid from Cyprus reaches starving people in northern Gaza, says charity

A US-based charity said a consignment of almost 200 tons of food aid had reached starving people in northern Gaza on Tuesday, a week after being dispatched via a maritime route from the Cypriot port of Larnaca.

World Central Kitchen (WCK), working with the United Arab Emirates and Spanish charity Open Arms, sent the food via the 200-kilometer sea route from Larnaca to a makeshift jetty off Gaza. The consignment arrived off Gaza on Friday.

A convoy of eight trucks belonging to the World Food Programme (WFP) then ferried the aid - the equivalent of half a million meals - to its final destination on Tuesday.

A UN-backed report said on Monday that famine was "imminent" in the northern Gaza Strip, where some 300,000 people are trapped by fighting. Across the whole Gaza Strip, the number of people facing "catastrophic hunger" has risen to 1.1 million - half the...