Aid agencies have repeatedly warned that no method of relief is as effective as delivery by land, but they say Israeli restrictions mean a fraction of what is needed is getting in.
The shipment contained 200 tons of food desperately needed for Gaza, which the UN says is on the brink of famine. It marks the start of a trial to see if the sea route would be more effective than air and land deliveries.
Aid agencies have accused Israel of impeding aid deliveries, a charge vehemently denied by Israeli officials. They say Israel is allowing aid through two crossings in the south and has blamed aid agencies of logistical failures.
Saturday's shipment arrived on board Spanish charity ship Open Arms.
Its cargo includes beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil, salt and pallets of dates, which hold spiritual significance during Ramadan.
In a statement, World Central Kitchen (WCK) said, "All cargo was offloaded and is being readied for distribution in Gaza." Teams worked through the night to get the aid on to dry land.
Gaza
has no functioning port, so a jetty stemming from the shoreline was built by
WCK's team.
However, there are few details on how the aid distribution will work, with UN
relief agencies having described huge obstacles to getting relief supplies to
those in need.
Earlier, WCK's founder, celebrity chef José Andrés, wrote on
X (formerly Twitter) that all the food aid from the barge had been loaded into
12 lorries.
"We did it!" he wrote, adding that this was a test to see if they
could bring even more aid in the next shipment — up to "thousands of tons
a week".
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops had been deployed to secure the shoreline.
This delivery has been highly anticipated since the ship set
off from the port of Larnaca on Tuesday.
If this sea mission is deemed a success, other aid ships will likely follow as
part of an international effort to get more aid into Gaza. The ships would use
a newly opened sea route to travel directly to the region.
The US is planning to build its own floating dock off the coast to boost sea deliveries. The White House says it could see two million meals a day enter Gaza, but while a military ship is en route with equipment on board to build the dock, questions remain about the logistics of the plan.
The World Food Program had to temporarily pause its land deliveries after convoys came under gunfire and looting. And an air drop turned deadly last week when five people were reportedly killed when a parachute failed and they were hit by the aid package.
The UN has warned that famine is "almost inevitable" in Gaza without urgent action, and the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has accused Israel of creating a "manmade" disaster and using starvation as a weapon of war.
