Turkish ship carrying aid for Gaza arrived in Israel Sunday

A Turkish cargo ship carrying  humanitarian aid bound for the Gaza

Turkey's state-run Anadolu (news) agency said the vessel, Lady Leyla, arrived at the Israeli port in Ashdod on Sunday, 35 hours after leaving the Turkish port city of Mersin.
The Panama-flagged ship was carrying 11,000 tonnes of supplies including food packages, flour, rice, sugar and toys, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
'The ship is docking these very moments,' a spokesman for the Ashdod Port, Yigal Ben Zikry, said earlier on Sunday.
Its contents were to be unloaded, inspected and sent on to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, hit by three wars with Israel since 2008 and under an Israeli blockade.
The aid delivery marks a return to normalized relations between Turkey and Israel, which were ruptured in 2010.
Aid for the 1.9 million Palestinians in the poverty stricken enclave is part of a reconciliation deal signed between Turkey and Israel last week.
Months of negotiations between the two sides led to the agreement, which included compensation for the victims of the Israeli raid.
Tel Aviv will contribute $20 million (18 million euros) to a victim's fund for those killed in the so-called Mavi Marmara affair - the name of the ship that Israeli forces raided.
In return, Ankara will drop criminal charges against the Israeli soldiers involved in the raid.
Israel rejected Turkey's main demand - easy access to the Gaza strip - but Israel has agreed to allow aid shipments to Hamas-run Gaza, as long as they first pass through the Ashdod port for inspection.
Turkey will also be allowed to build a hospital, power plant and water desalinization plant in Gaza.
Sunday's delivery comes before the start of one of Islam's major holidays - Eid al-Fitr.