Aid Ship Sails to Gaza as Israel-Hamas War Grinds on

The Open Arms, a rescue vessel owned by a Spanish NGO, departs with humanitarian aid for Gaza from Larnaca, Cyprus, March 12, 2024. (Reuters)
The Open Arms, a rescue vessel owned by a Spanish NGO, departs with humanitarian aid for Gaza from Larnaca, Cyprus, March 12, 2024. (Reuters)
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Aid Ship Sails to Gaza as Israel-Hamas War Grinds on

The Open Arms, a rescue vessel owned by a Spanish NGO, departs with humanitarian aid for Gaza from Larnaca, Cyprus, March 12, 2024. (Reuters)
The Open Arms, a rescue vessel owned by a Spanish NGO, departs with humanitarian aid for Gaza from Larnaca, Cyprus, March 12, 2024. (Reuters)

A Spanish charity ship taking food aid to Gaza left the Mediterranean island of Cyprus on Tuesday in hopes of opening a maritime corridor to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.  

The Open Arms set sail towing a barge loaded with 200 tons of relief goods for the sea journey of about 400 kilometers (250 miles), as Cyprus said it was readying a second ship.  

"The departure of the first ship is a sign of hope," European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media platform X. "We will work hard together for many more ships to follow."

Heavy Israeli bombardment again rained down on Gaza, killing at least 80 people overnight, and dozens more were missing under the rubble, said the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

"At least 80 martyrs arrived at hospitals, the majority children, women and the elderly," it said in a statement.  

The army said its forces were raiding targets across Gaza and had found "AK-47 rifles, vests and explosive devices" in a military compound in the main southern city of Khan Younis.  

The war since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel has levelled vast parts of the coastal strip and sparked dire food shortages that have led the UN World Food Program to warn "famine is imminent" in northern Gaza.  

As the flow of aid trucks from Egypt has slowed -- a trend variously blamed on the war, the growing insecurity on the ground, and cumbersome Israeli inspections of cargo -- Western and Arab governments have stepped up daily airdrops.  

However, UN and other relief agencies warn that parachuting in aid parcels is less effective and falls far short of the hundreds of truckloads needed every day to sustain the population of 2.4 million people.

The humanitarian crisis has gripped Gaza at a time Muslims have since Monday observed the holy month of Ramadan, where daytime fasts are traditionally broken with lavish evening iftar meals with family and friends.  

In Gaza's southern city of Rafah -- now home to nearly 1.5 million people, many of whom have sought refuge in crowded shelters and makeshift tents -- one man, Mohammad al-Masry, said this year the family had just "canned food and beans".  

Another displaced woman, Umm Muhammad Abu Matar from Khan Younis, told AFP that this year, Ramadan has "the taste of blood and misery".  

Truce 'not near'  

The war started with the October 7 Hamas attack that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli official figures.  

The fighters also took around 250 hostages, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes about 130 captives remain in Gaza, including 32 presumed dead.  

The Israeli military said Tuesday a soldier believed to be held in Gaza, Itay Hen, 19, had been killed on October 7 and his body was taken to Gaza.  

US President Joe Biden expressed his condolences for the soldier, a dual Israeli-US national whose surname is also spelled Chen.

Israel's retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive have killed 31,184 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry.

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

Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said that, although talks between the parties continued, "we are not near a deal".  

Hamas has demanded a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a demand labelled "delusional" by Israel, which accuses the group of seeking to stoke unrest during Ramadan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed, despite growing international opposition, to push on with the war.  

In an interview with Fox News, he doubled down on his plan to send troops into Rafah near the Egyptian border, the last area so far spared ground operations.  

"We can't leave a quarter of the Hamas terror army in place, they're there in Rafah," the right-wing premier said, adding that "it's either Israel or Hamas, there's no middle way".  

He said Israel agreed with the United States on the need to "first enable the safe departure of the civilian population from Rafah before we go in".  

Lebanon, Yemen violence  

The worst ever Gaza war, now in its sixth month, has stoked anger and protests worldwide, most of them against Israel.  

It has also sparked clashes involving Iran-backed armed groups in the region, including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi militias.  

The Israeli army said Tuesday it had hit around 4,500 Hezbollah targets over the past five months in Lebanon and Syria, killing 300 fighters of the group and wounding more than 750.  

The targets included "weapons storage facilities, military structures intended for Hezbollah's offensive activity and operational command and control centers".  

New strikes on Tuesday on eastern Lebanon, far from the border, killed two people, Lebanese sources said, after Hezbollah said it had launched "more than 100" rockets at Israeli military positions.

Yemen's Houthis have been attacking ships on the key Red Sea trade route leading towards the Suez Canal, in professed solidarity with the Palestinians, forcing many vessels to make the costlier journey around Africa.  

US forces said Tuesday they had destroyed nearly 20 ballistic missiles and an underwater drone after the Houthis had fired two missiles, without causing casualties or damage, towards a merchant ship.  

The Houthis said the attacks were "in support of the oppressed Palestinian people" and vowed that "military operations will be escalated... during the month of Ramadan".



Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.