Just as U.S. troops began building the temporary pier off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, there were rumors of an attack near the area where the walkway is scheduled to make landfall. However, a senior US military official said the soldiers were working miles from the coast.
The start of the operation, which aims to expand the flow of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory with the collaboration of Israel, has raised fears that troops will end up trapped in the war. To avoid this, US President Joe Biden has ordered them not to set foot on the Gaza coast. And the Pentagon explained that it has sent a “significant protection force” and that it closely monitors the security of the environment.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed they were investigating some type of mortar attack in Gaza, which caused minimal damage to the dock assembly area.
The pier is expected to be operational in May, the Pentagon announced. Once the construction is ready at sea, Israeli engineers will be in charge of connecting it to land. Initially, the platform will handle 90 trucks per day, but that number could increase to 150 trucks when fully operational.
The United Nations assured that in the month of April an average of 200 trucks entered Gaza and that on Monday there was a peak of 316. Before the war, 500 trucks entered a day, when the enclave was not in a situation of humanitarian catastrophe. like the current one. Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, following the Islamist group’s Oct. 7 attack, has devastated the small Gaza strip and exposed half of its 2.3 million people to famine.
Biden announced construction of the pier in March, as humanitarian agencies implored Israel to facilitate access for aid supplies to Gaza via land routes. It is unclear whether the pier will ultimately boost humanitarian aid, as there are questions about who will be responsible for ensuring distribution within the strip.
Humanitarian aid leaving the dock will have to pass through Israeli checkpoints on land, a senior Biden administration official told Reuters. This is despite the fact that Israel will have already inspected the aid in Cyprus before sending it to Gaza. The prospect of checkpoints opens up the possibility of delivery delays. Once the shipment is approved, Palestinian drivers hired by the UN will collect the aid and take it to the points.
The United Nations, in charge of distributing aid in the enclave through UNRWA, has long complained about the obstacles it faces in getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza. They say that Israel does not guarantee their security, but the Israeli authorities blame Hamas and the ineffectiveness of UNRWA.
About a thousand US Army soldiers and sailors will support the mission. And the Israeli army will allocate one of its brigades to support the logistics and security of the operation, as well as ships and planes to protect US troops.
The northern Gaza Strip continues to head towards famine because Israel has not allowed daily deliveries of food and other critical items to hundreds of thousands of people who desperately need them, warned World Food Program deputy director Carl Skau.
The UN agency representative acknowledged that some progress has been made since Israel pledged on April 5 to speed up aid deliveries, but not enough. Seven to 12 trucks have arrived in the area every two days, or every three days in the past three weeks, he said, and at least 30 trucks are needed each day. “We have not seen the paradigm shift that is needed to avoid famine,” Skau remarked. He also called for Israel to allow direct access from its southern port of Ashdod to the Erez crossing, or the other crossing it opened in early April, both in the north of the strip.
On a positive note, Skau noted that there are now 16 bakeries open in Gaza, delivering some 60,000 bags of bread each day, which “are really having a psychological and calming impact,” Skau said. The World Food Program wants to open more, but needs greater access to ingredients.
“The Gaza Strip has the highest number of people suffering from catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the World Food Crises Report, even as trucks of blocked aid line the border,” warned the UN secretary general. , Antonio Guterres.
