More aid to be sent from Cyprus to Gaza

A second shipment of aid will be sent from Cyprus to Gaza in coming days, its foreign minister said Wednesday, citing growing acceptance the island could play a pivotal role in delivering supplies by sea to the shattered Palestinian enclave.
A ship carrying almost 200 tonnes of food aid for Gaza left Cyprus on Tuesday, launching a new but untested maritime route to get emergency supplies to a population humanitarian agencies say is at risk of starvation after five months of war.
A new shipment is in the pipeline, Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said.
Cyprus is the closest European Union member state to the Middle East.
Further steps on coordinating seaborne aid will be addressed in a conference call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, British counterpart David Cameron, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, and a representative of the European Commission, according to Kombos.
Mostly funded by the UAE, food collected by charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) was slowly making its way across the Mediterranean yesterday on a barge towed by the Open Arms, a salvage vessel belonging to Spanish charity Proactiva Open Arms.
The timing of its arrival in Gaza remains unclear.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said at least one staff member was killed and another 22 were wounded as an Israeli strike hit an affiliated food distribution center in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.
An UNRWA statement said the Israeli raid came despite its sharing the coordinates of its facilities across the war-torn enclave with all conflicting parties.
Protecting and aiding civilians must be "job number one" for Israel in the war-battered Gaza Strip, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.
"Where there is a will, there is a way," Blinken told reporters in Washington after a virtual meeting with ministers on a new maritime corridor for aid into Gaza.
"We look to the government of Israel to make sure this is a priority. Protecting civilians, getting people the assistance they need, that has to be job number one, even as they do what is necessary to defend the country and to deal with the threat posed by Hamas," Blinken said.