The US military yesterday finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip, with officials poised to begin ferrying humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged for more than seven months amid intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war.
The final, overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after US President Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation as food and other supplies fail to make it in after Israel seized the Rafah border crossing in its push on that southern city on the Egyptian border.
Fraught with logistical, weather and security challenges, the maritime route is designed to bolster the amount of aid getting into the Gaza Strip, but it is not considered a substitute for far cheaper land-based deliveries that aid agencies say are much more sustainable.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The boatloads of aid are to be deposited at a port facility built by Israel just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.
US troops are not to set foot in Gaza, officials say, although they acknowledge the danger of operating near the war zone.
Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of Rafah has displaced about 600,000 people, UN officials say.
Another 100,000 people have fled parts of northern Gaza now that the Israeli military has restarted combat operations there.
Pentagon officials said the fighting in Gaza was not threatening the new shoreline aid distribution area, but they have made it clear that security conditions will be monitored closely and could prompt a shutdown of the maritime route, even just temporarily.
Already, the site has been targeted by mortar fire during its construction and Hamas has threatened to target any foreign forces who “occupy” the Gaza Strip.
The “protection of US forces participating is a top priority. And as such, in the last several weeks, the United States and Israel have developed an integrated security plan to protect all the personnel who are working,” said US Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, a deputy commander at the US military’s Central Command. “We are confident in the ability of this security arrangement to protect those involved.”
Israeli forces are in charge of security on the shore, but there are also two US Navy warships near the area in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Paul Ignatius.
Both ships are destroyers equipped with a wide range of weapons and capabilities to protect troops off shore and allies on the beach.
Aid agencies say they are running out of food in southern Gaza and fuel is dwindling, which will force hospitals to shut down critical operations and halt truck deliveries of aid.
The UN and other agencies have warned for weeks that an Israel assault on Rafah, which is on the border with Egypt near the main aid entry points, would cripple humanitarian operations and cause a disastrous surge in civilian casualties.
The first cargo ship loaded with 475 pallets of food left Cyprus last week to rendezvous with a US military ship, the Roy P. Benavidez, which is off the coast of Gaza.
The pallets of aid on the MV Sagamore were moved onto the Benavidez.
The Pentagon said that moving the aid between ships was an effort to be ready so it could flow quickly once the pier and the causeway were installed.
The installation of the pier several kilometers off the coast and of the causeway, which is now anchored to the beach, was delayed for nearly two weeks because of bad weather and high seas.
The sea conditions made it too dangerous for US and Israeli troops to secure the causeway to the shore and do other final assembly work, US officials said.
A US defense official said that the Sagamore’s initial shipment was estimated to provide enough to feed 11,000 people for one month.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public.
Military leaders have said the deliveries of aid will begin slowly to ensure the system works, with about 90 truckloads of aid a day through the sea route.
That number would quickly grow to about 150 a day, they said.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters that the project would cost at least US$320 million, including the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the US to the coast of Gaza, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.
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