Israel's refusal to allow substantial aid into the Gaza Strip has left its population facing famine and life-threatening medical supply shortages.
ADVERTISEMENTA ship carrying 200 tons of aid has reached the coast of Gaza, opening up a new sea route from Cyprus.
The barge began unloading its desperately needed cargo on Friday, amid warnings from humanitarian organisations that the Palestinian enclave is on the brink of famine.
The inauguration of this new sea corridor can help alleviate the immense humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with land deliveries proving difficult due to security and logistical challenges.
However, on Wednesday, 25 NGOs said maritime routes and airdrops cannot substitute for land deliveries of aid. Unhindered humanitarian access through land crossings is far more effective and efficient, they argued.
The ship, manned by the Spanish aid group Open Arms, left Cyprus on Tuesday towing a barge laden with food sent by World Central Kitchen, the charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés.
A temporary jetty was built so the food could be unloaded to shore.
Israel has been under increasing pressure to allow more aid into Gaza after five months of war between Israel and Hamas.
The US has joined other countries in airdropping supplies to the isolated region of northern Gaza and has announced separate plans to construct a pier to get aid in.
Aid groups said the airdrops and sea shipments are far less efficient ways of delivering the massive quantity of aid needed in Gaza.
Instead, the groups have called on Israel to guarantee safe corridors for truck convoys after land deliveries became nearly impossible because of military restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of order.
The daily number of supply trucks entering Gaza since the war began has been far below the 500 that entered before Hamas militants killed more than 1,000 people in southern Israel on 7 October.
To date, some 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 73,000 injured, according to local health authorities.
Earlier in the week, Israel allowed six aid trucks to enter directly into the north, though humanitarian organisations have said this is nowhere near enough to meet demand.
Help on the way
World Central Kitchen operates 65 kitchens across Gaza where it has served 32 million meals since the war started, the group said.
Aid includes rice, flour, lentils, beans, tuna and canned meat, according to World Central Kitchen spokesperson Linda Roth.
It plans to distribute the food in the north, the largely devastated target of Israel's initial offensive in Gaza. The area has been mostly cut off by Israeli forces since October.
Up to 300,000 Palestinians are believed to have remained there despite Israeli evacuation orders, with many reduced to eating animal feed in recent weeks.
A second vessel being loaded with even more aid will head to Gaza once the aid on the first ship is offloaded and distributed, Cyprus' Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said.
ADVERTISEMENTHe declined to specify when the second vessel would leave, saying it depends in part on whether the Open Arms delivery goes smoothly.
According to the UN, a quarter of Gaza's population is starving.
The ship was spotted from the coast just hours after Gaza's Health Ministry in Gaza accused Israeli forces of launching an attack near an aid distribution point in northern Gaza, killing 20 people and wounding 155 others.
The Israeli military said those reports were false, adding it was assessing the event "with the thoroughness that it deserves."
The Health Ministry said a group waiting for aid near the Kuwaiti roundabout was hit by Israeli shelling late Thursday.
ADVERTISEMENTBloodshed surrounded an aid convoy in northern Gaza on February 29, with 118 Palestinians killed.
Witnesses and hospital officials said many of the casualties were from bullet wounds; the Israeli military said some of its forces fired at people in the crowd who were advancing toward them, and that many of the casualties were caused by a stampede over the food and people being run over by the aid trucks.
It was after that incident that plans for the sea route took shape, and the US and other countries joined Jordan in dropping aid into the north of Gaza by plane.
But people in northern Gaza say the airdrops are insufficient given the scale and urgency of need.
Many can't access the aid because people are fighting over it, said Suwar Baroud, 24, who was displaced by the fighting and is now in Gaza City. Some people hoard it and sell it in the market, she said.
ADVERTISEMENTOne recent airdrop that malfunctioned plummeted from the sky and killed five people.
Another drop landed in a sewage and garbage dump, said Riham Abu al-Bid, 27. Men ran in but were unable to retrieve anything, she said.
"I wish these airdrops never happened and that our dignity and freedom would be taken into consideration, so we can get our sustenance in a dignified way and not in a manner that is so humiliating," she said.