The first aid ship into Gaza carrying 200 tons of much-needed food has been fully offloaded as part of new efforts to ease a dire humanitarian crisis.
A second boat of 240 tonnes of humanitarian food aid is being prepared, according to nonprofit World Central Kitchen (WCK).
However, maritime shipments cannot stop what aid agencies warn is a looming famine in Gaza on their own.
Here's why.
There are no functioning ports left in Gaza, with UN Special Rapporteur for food Michael Fakhr saying last week that Israel decimated the enclave's main port.
For the ship that arrived Friday, workers had to assemble a jetty to which the vessel could be connected before being offloaded.
While US President Joe Biden has announced plans to establish a separate port in Gaza to receive large aid shipments, that floating pier could take up to two months and some 1,000 US military personnel to complete, according to the Pentagon.
Ships carrying aid are also subject to the same Israeli inspections that have been accused by aid agencies of denying access for arbitrary reasons, or no reason at all.
A 200-ton shipment also does not match up to the daily average of about 94.5 trucks crossing into Gaza via land as of last month, each carry about 20 tons of aid -- and even that’s far below the estimated 500 trucks the UN says are needed daily in order to alleviate the suffering of Gazans.
Read more about the challenges aid deliveries in Gaza are encountering here.