A shipment of 900 tonnes of humanitarian aid has been sent from Cyprus to Gaza, the foreign ministry said on Thursday, explaining that the shipment “includes medicines, medical equipment, hygiene supplies, food and shelter equipment”.

It said that the shipment is being delivered to the strip “in close cooperation” with the United Nations office for project services and the United Arab Emirates, “as well as with the necessary operational coordination with the directly involved parties”.

“Various states, international organisations and humanitarian organisations are contributing to the shipment, including the French Republic, the Slovak Republic, the State of Kuwait, the United Nations development programme, the United Nations population fund, the World Health Organisation, the World Central Kitchen, All Hands and Hearts, and Project Hope,” it said.

It added that Cyprus “is continuing to act as a stable hub for the collection, storage, security screening, inspection and dispatch of humanitarian aid, which is transferred for delivery and distribution in Gaza via the port of Ashdod”.

“It is noted that to date, since the launch of the humanitarian corridor, more than 37,000 tonnes of aid have been dispatched and delivered to the civilian population of Gaza,” it said.

The Amalthea plan has had a mixed history, with doubts initially having been expressed by Sigrid Kaag in 2024.

She was at the time the UN’s senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, and now the UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, and said at the time that the Amalthea project could “never be a substitute” for aid deliveries made by land.

Aid is typically sent via the Israeli port of Ashdod, and with its transfer has been more stable in recent months following the dismantling of a temporary jetty which had initially been used to transfer aid directly to Gaza.

At a summit in Sharm El-Sheikh in October last year, President Nikos Christodoulides had reportedly included the Amalthea initiative as part of a multi-point plan for how Cyprus can aid in the “implementation and realisation” of United States President Donald Trump’s plan for the future of Gaza.

It was reported at the time that his plan stated that “the mechanisms and procedures which have been developed within the framework of Amalthea for fast-track security checks in Cyprus are usable for the next phase and can offer important solutions”.

Christodoulides returned from that summit speaking of “six initiatives the Republic of Cyprus can undertake” based on Trump’s then 20-point plan for Gaza’s future.

Shortly afterwards, presidential press office director Victor Papadopoulos had said that Cyprus would seek to offer “operational support” for international efforts to ensure peace in and reconstruct Gaza.

The government, he said, had “proposed an applied contribution model which has already been codified in six operational pillars, building on the successful implementation of the Amalthea plan”.