U.S. President Joe Biden’s plan to build a floating U.S. military port to speed up aid to Gaza could take up to 60 days and involve more than 1,000 American troops, the Pentagon said on Friday.
Famine in Gaza inevitable
The United Nations has warned that widespread famine in the Gaza Strip is “almost inevitable” without urgent action. A formal conclusion that famine has arrived in the coastal enclave of 2.3 million people could come next week. The U.N. has said that once famine is declared, it is too late to help many people.
Some U.S. lawmakers and aid organizations said the floating pier system masked the bigger issue: the failure to get Israel’s government to allow more aid to enter Gaza by land, which is the fastest, most efficient option.
“This is not a logistics problem it is a political problem,” Avril Benoît, executive director for Doctors Without Borders in the United States said.
“Rather than look to the U.S. military to build a work-around, the US should insist on immediate humanitarian access using the roads and entry points that already exist,” he added.
Construction issues#GazaFamine: UN experts condemn ‘flour massacre’ and urge #Israel to end campaign of starvation & targeting of civilians in #Gaza.
— UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts) March 5, 2024
They reiterate the earlier call by @UN_SPExperts for an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel.https://t.co/qSWtItCm9n pic.twitter.com/OAarJtPgJH
Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, described the planning for the port system as still in its early stages.
He stressed that no U.S. troops would enter Gaza, even temporarily, to help with construction, despite the Hamas terrorist group being a possible threat to the port system construction process.
The U.S. port system being envisioned for Gaza involves two separate components, the first being construction of a floating, offshore barge that would be able to accept aid deliveries.
The U.S. military would then move aid from there to a floating, 550 meter-long causeway anchored to the shore.
Once operational, the port system would allow delivery of about 2 million meals to Gazans daily, Ryder said.
By comparison, the U.S. military has delivered a total of about 124,000 meals during four airdrops in the past week.
The latest airdrop on Friday delivered about 11,500 meals in Gaza, the U.S. military said.#Airdrops are only a last resort to reach Northern Gaza. Road routes are the only way to bring in the large quantities of food desperately needed to avert #famine.
— WFP in the Middle East & North Africa (@WFP_MENA) March 6, 2024
For comparison:
🪂 This week's airdrops = 6 tons of food
🚛This week's failed 14-truck convoy = 200 tons of food pic.twitter.com/xkR3ZfDgmt
