US to set up temporary pier in Gaza to deliver aid via sea routes

The escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza has forced the United States to take action as President Joe Biden announced recently that the frequency and quantity of aid being delivered to Gaza will be increased and that sea routes will be used to affect this change.

To facilitate this, a US military vessel laden with equipment to build a temporary pier in Gaza, began making its way across the Mediterranean on Sunday. This is an important initiative, especially for the Palestinians trapped in Gaza, thousands of whom are going hungry.

The increased supply of aid coincides with the beginning of Ramadan and can be considered a way between, since negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas fell through. The hope was that both sides would reach an amicable agreement for a temporary cessation to hostilities prior to the beginning of Ramadan but that did not come to pass as both camps walked away from negotiations without achieving much.

The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached a critical point, which is considered to be the reason why the United States has decided to open the sea corridor, as the nation continues to conduct airdrops with the likes of Jordan and several other nations that have committed to helping the citizens of Gaza.

These nations have also shown that they no longer have any qualms regarding sidestepping Israeli land shipment restrictions. Israel has responded positively to the idea of sea deliveries and will inspect Gaza bound shipments as they leave their designated staging areas in Cyprus.

Having said that, officials have made it very clear that while deliveries from air and sea are helping, they do not come close to matching the quantities that can be brought in through the land routes. The issue is that the entry of aid trucks into Gaza since the beginning of the war has been limited severely by the IDF, owing to security considerations.

In fact, in the last five months, less than 500 trucks have entered Gaza with aid, which highlights the extent to which the people with in the area have been squeezed.

Linda Roth, a spokesperson who is also working with a partner organisation called the World Central Kitchen, said that a ship provided by the Spanish aid group Open Arms, will undertake a pilot voyage to test the corridor, with 200 tons of aid, including food in the most part.

Despite these efforts, the ship is currently in Cyprus and authorities said that since the situation is fluid, appropriate action and measures will be taken to ensure that the initiative is a success.

President Biden has inadvertently added fuel to the fire by criticizing Netanyahu, when he said that the Israeli leader’s approach to the conflict in Gaza is likely to do more harm to Israel than good.

President Biden later clarified his comments when he spoke to the media, saying that Israel has every right to pursue Hamas after the calamity that is the October 7th attack. He did add though, that the loss of innocent lives in the process is something that must be avoided because it could affect Israel’s standing in the world drastically.

If the numbers furnished by the Health Ministry in Gaza are to be believed, 31,045 Palestinian lives have been lost since the abrupt beginning to the war. it is known that the ministry’s numbers don’t make the distinction between combatants and civilians.

Unofficially, it has been said that two-thirds of the total number is made up of women and children. Despite multiple approaches, Israel has refrained from commenting on very specific events which focus on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Considering the situation in Gaza right now, all parties involved in this conflict must tread lightly and find ways to communicate so as to maintain some semblance of coordination in their approach and efforts.

If one considers opinions and international support, Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza has slowly but surely planted questions in the minds of many of the nation’s ardent supporters, who now wonder if the current approach is the most appropriate one.

Incidents such as a recent Israeli strike on a house in Gaza city which led to the death nine Palestinians, including an infant whose dead body was pulled out by rescue workers and made international news, have put Israel on the back foot.

Even so, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has refused to stray from his goal of rooting Hamas out of Gaza once and for all, regardless of the monetary and human cost incurred in the process.

To many, this declaration and its reiteration by the Israeli leader is an ominous sign of things to come as the war drags on.