The first ship of food for Gaza’s population, which has been starving in more than five months of war, arrived off the coast of the Palestinian territory on Friday, as Hamas appears to have reversed its stance on a ceasefire, AFP and Agerpres note .

The Palestinian Islamist movement, which has so far demanded a permanent cease-fire from Israel pending any deal to release hostages held in the Gaza Strip, said it was open to a six-week truce involving a hostage-for-Palestinian prisoner exchange.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced at the time that an Israeli delegation would travel to Qatar as part of exchange talks, without specifying when.

The White House is “cautiously optimistic” about the ceasefire talks, a spokesman said on Friday.

“The proposal that was made (by the Palestinian movement) is generally compatible with the principles of the agreement that we have been working on for several months,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

The UN fears mass starvation

Meanwhile, the first vessel of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, towing a barge with 200 tonnes of food, has arrived in Gaza City (north), according to images taken by AFP.

The UN fears widespread famine in the Palestinian territory, especially in the war-torn and hard-to-reach north.

Hamas accused the Israeli army of opening fire Thursday evening with “tanks and helicopters” on a crowd waiting for a distribution of flour at the entrance to Gaza City.

The army rejected the accusation and said that “armed Palestinians” fired into the crowd.

According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 20 people were killed and 155 injured as a result of the shooting.

Time race

There is a race against time to try to deliver as much humanitarian aid as possible. It comes mainly from Egypt via Rafah (south) after inspection by Israel, but remains severely inadequate given the enormous needs of the 2.4 million residents of the Gaza Strip.

In view of the humanitarian emergency, several countries have begun to organize parachutes or a sea corridor from Cyprus, but all emphasize that these routes cannot replace land routes.

Leaving Cyprus on Tuesday, the ship Open Arms carried 300,000 meals prepared by the American NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK).

“The ship passed a full security check,” the Israeli military said, stressing that the arrival of humanitarian aid “does not violate” the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007.

According to Hamas, more than 31 thousand people died in Gaza

The start of the war was a bloody attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7, which killed about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to AFP, based on official data.

According to Israel, about 250 people were abducted, 130 of whom are still being held hostage in Gaza, of whom 32 are believed to have died.

According to the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Islamist movement, in response, the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip took the lives of 31,490 people, most of them civilians.