For the first time since the port of Ashdod in southern Israel was opened for aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, relief supplies for the coastal area have been handled via the port, Israel’s army said on Wednesday. Eight lorries carrying flour were checked there and then taken to the Gaza Strip, it said. However, the World Food Programme (WFP) trucks had entered the coastal area via the Kerem Shalom border crossing in the south – not via Erez in the north of the Gaza Strip, which Israel also recently announced would be opened and which is much closer to Ashdod. Kerem Shalom has long been used f…