NICOSIA, March 10, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Two hundred tonnes of food aid were "ready" to be sent from Cyprus to war-ravaged Gaza by sea, a Spanish NGO said Saturday, the first shipment along an EU-backed maritime corridor.

A spokeswoman 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" later Saturday.

"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.

On Friday, World Central Kitchen said it had been "preparing for weeks alongside our trusted NGO partner Open Arms for the opening of a maritime aid corridor that would allow us to scale our efforts in the region".

"World Central Kitchen teams are in Cyprus loading pallets of humanitarian aid onto a boat headed to northern Gaza," it added.

Dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza and overland access restrictions have led some countries to airdrop food and other assistance.

In Larnaca, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Friday she hoped the maritime aid corridor could open this Sunday, although some details remained unclear.

Gaza has no functioning ports, and officials did not say where the initial shipments would go or who would distribute the aid.

The Pentagon said Friday that a US plan to establish a "temporary offshore maritime pier" in Gaza would take up to 60 days and was likely to involve more than 1,000 American personnel.

On Saturday Israel's military said it was cooperating with the United States in establishing the pier.

"We will distribute the supplies through international organisations to people in need," military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a press briefing.

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has responded with a relentless military offensive that the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said has killed at least 30,960 people, most of them women and children.