US to set up temporary port on Gaza coast to transport aid supplies

The US military will build a port in the Gaza Strip to deliver more humanitarian aid by sea, President Joe Biden announced.

Officials said the temporary port would provide “several hundred additional truckloads” of humanitarian aid to Palestinians per day.

Biden added that U.S. troops would not land in Gaza. Britain said it would work with the United States to establish a maritime corridor.

The United Nations warns that a quarter of the population is at risk of starvation.

He said the port, which will be built by the U.S. military, will include a temporary pier to transport supplies from ships at sea to shore.

It is not clear who will build the causeway or secure land-based relief supplies, leaving key questions unanswered about whether the operation will be successful.

Officials said it would take “several weeks” to prepare the port to accommodate large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelter. The first shipment will arrive via Cyprus, where it will undergo Israeli security inspections.

“The temporary pier will allow us to significantly increase the amount of humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza each day,” President Biden said.

He added that Israel must “do its part” by allowing more aid into its territory and “ensure that humanitarian workers are not caught in the crossfire.” .

“Humanitarian aid should not be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.”

On Friday, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said: Posted in X: “Alongside the US, the UK and partner countries have also announced the opening of a maritime corridor to deliver aid directly to Gaza.”

After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, the Israeli military launched air and ground operations in the area.

More than 30,800 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the region’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Gaza doesn’t have a deep-water port, so the U.S. has been trying for weeks to find a way to quickly deliver shiploads of aid, while the administration has publicly ramped up pressure to address the desperate situation on the ground. He is increasingly showing public impatience with Israel. .

U.S. officials told the BBC’s U.S. partner CBS that there are plans for the pier to be installed by an Army unit called the 7th Transportation Brigade, based at Fort Story, Virginia.

The brigade is designed for rapid deployment, but the warships have not yet left the United States, officials said.

Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan, the US Navy’s top commander in the Middle East and former commander of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight program that the port plan was “absolutely doable”.

However, he said delivering aid by land remains the most effective way to deliver as much supplies as possible.

Most of the Palestinians said they were shot dead by Israeli forces. The Israeli military, which was overseeing the delivery of civilian relief supplies, said most had died in the stampede.

Aid trucks enter southern Gaza through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing and the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom. But the north, which was the focus of the first phase of Israel’s ground offensive, has been cut off from most aid in recent months.

On February 20, the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) announced that it was unable to deliver food to northern Gaza as first responders endured “total chaos and violence resulting from the breakdown of civil order”, including violent looting, for the first time in three weeks. It was announced that transportation would be temporarily suspended.

The United States and other countries are relying on airdrops of aid, but humanitarian groups say that method is a last resort and cannot meet surging needs.

An independent United Nations expert on Thursday accused Israel of launching a “starvation campaign against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

“The images of starvation in Gaza are excruciating, but you are doing nothing,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said in a speech at the UN Human Rights Council.

“Israel completely rejects the allegation that it is using famine as a means of war,” said Yera Sitrin, legal adviser to Israel’s mission to the United Nations, who walked out in protest.

In his State of the Union address, President Biden also said he was “working tirelessly” to reach an immediate six-week ceasefire, adding that the agreement “brings hostages home, alleviates an intolerable humanitarian crisis, and builds something better.” This is what we are building towards.” Endure.”

There were hopes that a 40-day truce could be reached ahead of the start of the Islamic month of Ramadan next week.

But Egyptian and Qatari mediators have struggled to finalize an agreement in which Hamas would release Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.