Days after Turkey and Israel reached a deal restoring normalized ties, 11,000 tons of humanitarian aid – including rice, flour, and toys – are being readied to send from Turkey to Gaza this Friday.
Relief supplies for the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip started being loaded Wednesday onto the Lady Leyla, a Panama-flagged ship, in Turkey's southern port of Mersin.
Under the deal, Turkey will be able to send humanitarian aid to Gaza as well as carry out infrastructure projects including residential buildings and a 200-bed Turkish-Palestine Friendship Hospital, Anadolu reports.
The Lady Leyla will carry 10,000 toys and 10,000 packages of food aid to the children of Gaza via the Israeli port of Ashdod. Five tons of flour and 2,000 tons of rice aid from the Turkish Grain Board as well as sugar aid from the Turkish Red Crescent (Turkiye Kizilayi) will also be delivered.
Turkey and Israel reached an initial reconciliation agreement late Sunday. Diplomatic ties between the two countries were suspended after Israeli troops stormed a Gaza-bound aid ship in international waters in 2010, killing 10 Turkish activists.
