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US military says Gaza Strip pier project is completed, aid to soon flow as Israel-Hamas war rages on (apnews.com)

submitted 5 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/world@lemmy.world

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The U.S. military finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with officials poised to begin ferrying badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war.

The final, overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after U.S. President Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation as food and other supplies fail to make it in as Israel recently seized the key 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. The boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.

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[-] athos77@kbin.social 48 points 5 months ago

the aid trucks will be unloaded on the shore in an area secured by Israeli forces [...] Israeli forces will be in charge of security on the shore

Right ... those same Israeli forces that have refused to let aid trucks into Gaza, have refused to let aid trucks move through Gaza, who have let Israelis loot burn and destroy aid trucks, who have deliberately and repeatedly targeted aid trucks and aid workers, repeatedly killing them? Those Israeli forces? I'm sure this'll be fine ...

[-] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 5 months ago

If this was a movie script it would be rejected for not making sense. But here we are in this clown-show reality.

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 28 points 5 months ago

The article states that the World Food Program will be delivering the aid. After seeing the tragic IDF attacks, as well as Hamas hoarding and selling food, shouldn’t the aid be delivered by military personnel?

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 23 points 5 months ago

You need military personnel from a country willing to do that. No one would trust Israel, Biden isn't doing that in an election year. Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria don't really care about Palestinians, or would make things worse with their presence. The US would block a UN presence more than likely. Europe is a bit preoccupied with Ukraine, and wouldn't put troops into another war zone with limited up side.

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

According to the article, the US military is in charge of the boat routes and overseeing military checkpoints. I’m just suggesting they drive the truck.

Biden has been pushing for aid to get safely into Gaza. That’s why the US built the dock in the first place. Why would the US block UN assistance in delivering aid?

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 13 points 5 months ago

Because Israel doesn't want the UN involved at all.

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

UN members are still providing humanitarian and defensive aid. The UK helped shoot down Iranian drones, and has been assisting in defending Israel from attacks in the Red Sea. They’ve provided Gaza with 150 tonnes of aid, including more than 13,000 blankets and 840 family-sized tents, entered Gaza on 13 March 2024.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-aid-en-route-to-temporary-pier-off-gaza

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 months ago

Individual nations are involved. The only presence the UN had was UNRWA and Netanyahu made sure they (mostly) disappeared ... although currently an UNRWA health clinic is being shelled by the IDF. Source

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I see your point, but it’s hard to tell if that’s the IDF targeting the UN or Gaza aid in general. They’ve been openly critical of both, but they’ve also attacked World Central Kitchen twice.

https://wck.org/news/amro

[-] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago

Pretty sure they don’t want to risk being dragged into yet another conflict in the Middle East. If someone got killed, hawkish republicans would demand an invasion and US troops

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

They’re already present as escorts through most of the route. I’m just suggesting they deliver the aid directly to discourage Israel and Hamas from targeting workers again. Both groups know better than to challenge the US military.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

It wouldn't be just delivering aid. Once the military is there it's a military operation. Their goal can be protecting aid, but that also means they likely have to fire on hamas raids, or even the Israel army at some point and either case is bad for everyone.

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

In that case the best they could do is escort wherever legally possible to maintain it as delivery of aid while still offering protection. Do you have a source that explains the designation for military operation if the military delivers aid?

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 months ago

Do you have a source that explains the designation for military operation if the military delivers aid?

You won't find any because no one wants to get near having their military force in Israel for any reason. It's political suicide (not to mention the fact America's armed forces are already short personnel).

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Again, the US military is already facilitating the transport for the aid. It’s being delivered by a humanitarian organization, with the help of the US military.

Also, the US armed forces have not left Israel. They have maintained consistent presence since the early ‘90s. The only two active military installations in Israel are American bases.

[-] djsoren19@yiffit.net 23 points 5 months ago

Oh no, now the U.S. is Hamas too!

[-] athos77@kbin.social 9 points 5 months ago

The US has been Hamas ever since they said they were holding back bombs that might be used in Rafah.

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 19 points 5 months ago

But then decided to send another billion in weapons to Israel.

Their cognitive dissonance is astounding.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

As an American, I would just like to say I’m fucking infuriated by how my government is handling this shit. Moreover, most of us who aren’t in the throes of the Trump cult are at the very least least dismayed with what our government is doing (that is, giving Israel a military aid firehose and doing fuck all to actually try to stop them from committing genocide).

We’ve got several crimes against humanity under our belt. I, for one, would very much like to avoid adding another. But Biden doesn’t seem to give a shit. And this also has the horrifying possibility of throwing the election, which would herald a whole hell of a lot of things that would be terrible for far, far more people in far more places than just Gaza (though, to be clear, Gaza would probably get fully genocided - maybe by US B-52s, if Trump wins it).

I fucking hate our political system so much. It’s so fundamentally and obviously broken, and the only people who can fix it are the same people who benefit from it being broken, so it’s going to stay broken. Who knows what will end up breaking through that deadlock… I’m just getting pretty fucking concerned that it’s gonna involve some political violence sometime soon.

[-] eestileib@sh.itjust.works -2 points 5 months ago

It's not that Biden doesn't give a shit. It's that Biden agrees with Bibi that the people living in Gaza are Dirty Others who must be kept in line with the threat of force.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I don’t agree.

I think this is honestly just the typical boomer “back Israel to the hilt because Jewish people got absolutely fucked by the Holocaust”, while simultaneously flat out ignoring the fact that Israel != all Jewish people.

[-] Tujio@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I'd at it's more 'there are two regional powers here, Israel and Iran. The more aid we give Israel the easier it makes Iran"

Edit: weaker* it makes Iran

Fucking autocorrect.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 months ago

And that zero-sum game thinking is idiotic.

Frankly, if we (read: mainly the US and the UK) made amends with Iran (and I know precisely how enormous of a conditional statement that is), and successfully ameliorate and rationalize their policy towards Israel (i.e. convince them to call off their own frankly genocidal policy towards Israel), that could be the the start of the path towards a much more robust peace in the middle east. It’ll likely take several generations to mellow things to a truly sustainable and reasonable level. But something like that might, I believe, be the start of the path to lasting peace in the Middle East - or at the very least, significantly diminished violence and conflict.

[-] Tujio@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

We had a tiny chance when Obama and Rouhani were talking. Hell, at one point we had a treaty. There was a road map and some hope.

Then Trump fucked it all up for no reason, along with all the other shit he pulled.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I mean… he fucked it up because one of the primary motivations of his entire goddamn presidency was to just shit in as many punch bowls with which Obama was even remotely affiliated.

Also, he’s deeply racist, and he’s also sore that Obama got a zinger in at the Press Correspondents dinner that one time (for real - but for one joke that a psychopath took poorly, we might have avoided the Trumpian era).

[-] mightyfoolish@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

By that logic, these two things are the same as long as we elect boomer government officials.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Again, no.

The two things are being treated as the same by the Biden administration.

Don’t ignore nuance. Ignoring nuance is what Netanyahu and the Israeli is actively trying to get everyone to do to, in the interest of giving themselves some geopolitical cover for executing their own “final solution” in Gaza.

Ignoring nuance is also what a lot of other autocrats and populists are trying to do in their own way, including Orban, Modi, Milei, Fico (to whom I wish a very slow, lengthy, and complicated convalescence), Trump, and Putin - along with much (or most) of the political parties behind them. It’s all in the interest of solidifying autocratic power and wealth, and scapegoating problems on people who are not the root cause of said problems (a common populist tactic).

[-] thejml@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

Biden is the one who decided, against Congress orders, to hold back the bomb shipment. The GOP was actively drafting legislation to push them out over his head when he allowed it through trying to skip becoming a Republican talking point.. but I really wish he didn’t capitulate to the GOP’s desires so easily.

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Considering US money has been funding both side, (remember those suitcases full of money the IDF has been giving to Hamas? true story) I wouldn't be surprised if that money comes from US aid to Israel.

[-] xenomor@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

I hope everyone understands that this entire project is a facade, designed to provide Biden and his administration with a hook on which they can hang claims of deniability without actually meaningfully hampering Israel’s genocide campaign.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 10 points 5 months ago

And once Israel completes the genocide I'm sure they'll be quite happy that the US built them a pier.

[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

That's amazing now they can combine handing out the flour bags and delivering the tank shells to the Nazis shooting at the flour distribution cars.

Genocide has never been more efficient.

[-] solo@kbin.earth 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

"You take some flour. We made a floating pier for you."

"And you take 1 billion dollars in arms to kill those you starve to death."

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 5 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with officials poised to begin ferrying badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war.

Pentagon officials said the fighting in Gaza wasn’t 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.

Because land crossings could bring in all the needed aid if Israeli officials allowed, the U.S.-built pier-and-sea route “is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Scott Paul, an associate director of the Oxfam humanitarian organization.

Biden used his State of the Union address on March 7 to order the military to set up a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, establishing a sea route to deliver food and other aid.

There, the pallets are transferred onto trucks, driven onto smaller Army boats and then shuttled several miles (kilometers) to the floating causeway, which has been anchored onto the beach by the Israeli military.

Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters that the project will cost at least $320 million, including the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the United States to the coast of Gaza, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.

The original article contains 1,123 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] StaySquared@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Don't be surprised if the U.S. claims they were attacked by Hamas and the U.S. gets dragged into the war.

[-] danekrae@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

Has oil been found Rafah?

[-] StaySquared@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

According to a 2019 UN report, there are over 3 billion barrels of oil estimated to be located beneath the occupied lands of Palestine, including off the coast. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has identified potential and existing oil and natural gas reserves in the West Bank and Gaza, including 1,525 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in the occupied Palestinian territories. However, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says that the Palestinian territories do not produce oil.

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 months ago

Never gonna happen.

[-] BetaBlake@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Not happening, the US genuinely wants nothing to do with Fighting Israel's bullshit

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 0 points 5 months ago

There have been images of aid being unloaded onto the piers for over a week.

[-] Stamau123@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

It's not like they would wait for it to be 100% to start unloading flour and socks. The last touches were probably to secure the offloading of heavier and/or specialized equipment.

this post was submitted on 16 May 2024

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