A vessel carrying aid to a pier built by the U.S. off Gaza set sail from Cyprus on Thursday, marine tracking websites showed.
A person is seen on board as a U.S. flagged cargo vessel carrying aid to a pier built by the U.S. off Gaza sets sail from Larnaca, Cyprus May 9, 2024. Reuters/Yiannis Kourtoglou
A vessel carrying aid to a pier built by the U.S. off Gaza set sail from Cyprus on Thursday, marine tracking websites showed.
The U.S. flagged Sagamore left the port of Larnaca on Thursday morning. U.S. officials have said the vessel will be used to offload supplies onto a floating pier built to expedite aid into the besieged enclave.
There was no immediate comment from Cypriot authorities, which had earlier said the ship would sail as soon as the floating platform was in place, subject to weather conditions.
Israel's military campaign against Hamas, in response to Hamas's attack on Israel on Oct. 7, has devastated the tiny Gaza Strip, where aid agencies warn its 2.3 million people are facing imminent famine.
Cyprus opened a sea corridor in March to ship aid directly to Gaza, where deliveries via land have been severely disrupted by border closures and Israel's military operations.
U.S.-based charity World Food Kitchen used the route twice before seven of its workers were killed in an Israeli air strike on April 1.
Reporting by Michele Kambas and Yiannis Kourtoglou
The U.S. government announced new sanctions on Thursday against firms and individuals that it says are aiding Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies in the Middle East as it intensified its campaign to isolate Iran economically.
Iranian strikes damaged multiple American military aircraft this week on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, a U.S. official told Reuters.
President Donald Trump said he expected the war with Iran to end after the November U.S. midterm elections and threatened again to attack a site associated with the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme after the two sides launched their biggest wave of attacks on shipping since the start of the six-month-old war.
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