Two hundred tonnes of food aid were “ready” to be sent from Cyprus to bombarded Gaza by sea, a Spanish NGO said, the first shipment along an EU-backed maritime corridor.

A spokesperson for Open Arms, a charity whose boat docked three weeks ago in the Cypriot port of Larnaca, said: “everything will be ready to be able to set sail.”

“Depending on all the authorisations and permits, and when we get them”, the vessel — also called Open Arms — could embark “today or tomorrow,” Laura Lanuza told AFP.

The Spanish aid group has partnered with US charity World Central Kitchen to prepare the first aid delivery via the sea route that the EU Commission hopes will open this weekend.

Lanuza said Israeli authorities, which have welcomed the Cypriot initiative, have already begun inspecting the cargo of “200 tonnes of basic foodstuffs, rice and flour, cans of tuna”.

World Central Kitchen teams in the besieged Palestinian territory have begun “constructing a dock” to unload the shipment, she said, without elaborating for security reasons.

Lanuza said the charity has had people in Gaza “distributing food and cooking” since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its sixth month.