The Cyprus chamber of commerce and industry (Keve) on Wednesday made a fresh call for domestic suppliers to provide products to be sent to Gaza via Cyprus’ Amalthea humanitarian aid corridor.

The plan is for aid provided by domestic suppliers to be purchased using money from the Amalthea fund, which was set up earlier this year and is accepting donations from nation states.

A large proportion of the aid purchased through the fund is acquired from United Nations organisations such as the World Food Programme, though calls for domestic supplies in Cyprus have also been made.

On Wednesday, Keve asked for mainly dried food, including canned goods, pulses, flour, pasta, nuts, coffee, and products which do not require refrigeration, as well as household supplies such as mattresses, pillows, bedsheets towels and tents without metal poles.

They added that the list of required and accepted items may be expanded at a later stage to possibly include other goods including medicines.

Keve’s announcement mirrors a similar call put out by the Cyprus employers’ and industrialists’ federation (Oev) in April, which asked for basic food items and perishable medicines to be sent to the Larnaca port for an imminent shipment at the time.

They had been informed by the foreign ministry of a planned shipment of aid to Gaza, which eventually set sail for the Israeli port of Ashdod some days later.

However, despite Keve’s call for aid, questions remain over the immediate future of the aid corridor, with the temporary jetty which had been placed off the coast of Gaza still broken and undergoing repairs in Ashdod.

The jetty had broken apart in high winds last months, with four United States ships which had been stabilising it becoming detached and winding up beached near the Israeli town of Ashkelon.

Two of the vessels which had been beached in May were still unmoved as of Tuesday, with Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh saying recovery efforts were “proving to be a little more difficult” as the ships “did take on a lot of water and sand” when they ran aground.

Last week, she had said repairs to the jetty  would take “at least over a week”, and that the US Agency for International Development (USAid) were attempting to figure out “faster, efficient ways to get the aid that’s already in Cyprus into Gaza”.

The aid corridor’s problems come days after a total of 20 humanitarian aid agencies described the jetty’s creation as a “cosmetic change”.

Reacting to recent events in Gaza, including the bombing of a tent camp by Israel, they said, “the ability of aid groups and medical teams to respond has now all but crumbled, with temporary fixes such as a ‘floating jetty’ and new crossing points having little impact.”

They added that “systematic obstruction”, “intensified hostilities”, and “prolonged telecommunications blackouts” by the Israeli authorities have reduced the volume of aid entering Gaza to its lowest level in the last seven months.