Posted on 03/11/2024 10:34:48 AM PDT by SJackson
Defense minister touts internationally backed route as key to making sure aid gets to civilians and not terror group as Spanish ship in Cyprus loaded with food readies pilot voyage
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant backed an international plan to provide aid to Gaza via a temporary seaport, saying the initiative would help speed along Israel’s goal of toppling the Hamas terror group.
His comments came as the US military said a vessel had been dispatched to the region with equipment to construct a dock meant to bolster plans to begin delivering aid to Gaza by sea, as a boat filled with aid idled off the coast of Cyprus.
“The process is designed to bring aid directly to the residents and thus continue the collapse of Hamas’s rule in Gaza,” Gallant said while touring the Gaza coast from a Dvora-class navy patrol boat.
Officials from the UN and various relief organizations say food and other humanitarian aid have been slow to get into the Strip and distributed, especially to northern Gaza, hampered by Israeli inspections, the location of crossings in the south of the Strip, and desperate Gazans, as well as looters, picking trucks clean before they can reach the north part of the enclave.
Amid warnings of famine, the US, Jordan and others have stepped up efforts to get in aid by air and now sea, though UN officials insist ground deliveries remain the most efficient way to deliver relief.
Gallant said aid deliveries by sea would help “ensure that supplies reach here for those who need them and not for those who don’t.”
“We will bring the aid through a maritime route that is coordinated with the US on the security and humanitarian side, with the assistance of the UAE on the civil side, and appropriate inspection in Cyprus, and we will bring goods imported by international organizations with American assistance,” he said.
The US Central Command said Sunday that a first US Army vessel, the General Frank S. Besson, left a base in Virginia on Saturday and was on its way to the Eastern Mediterranean with construction equipment, after US President Joe Biden announced plans to increase aid deliveries to the area by sea.
The new push for aid came as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was set to begin Monday in much of the world after officials in Saudi Arabia saw the crescent moon. Hopes for a new temporary ceasefire by Ramadan faded days ago with negotiations apparently stalled.
US officials said that it would likely be weeks before the pier is operational. Construction is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars and take up to 60 days, The New York Times reported.
Gaza’s waters are also considered too shallow for the large barges that would be needed to ship in the cargo.
International aid groups do not appear to be planning to wait for the construction of the US dock to try out the sea route.
A ship belonging to Spanish aid group Open Arms and carrying 200 tons of food aid was expected to make a pilot voyage to test the corridor “as soon as possible” but not Sunday, said spokesperson Linda Roth with partner organization World Central Kitchen, a charity that delivers food to areas that suffered natural disasters.
The ship in Cyprus is expected to take two to three days to arrive at an undisclosed location in Gaza.
A member of the charity said on X that once the ship’s barge reaches Gaza, aid would be offloaded by a crane, placed on trucks and driven to northern Gaza, which was the first focus of Israel’s military offensive.
The sea corridor is backed by the European Union together with the United States, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. The European Commission has said that UN agencies and the Red Cross will play a role
The US announced the plan for the sea route and dock following an incident in northern Gaza in which over 100 Palestinians were killed while trying to access an aid truck. It is unclear how many of the casualties died because of a stampede or Israeli fire.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, at least 31,045 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. These numbers cannot be independently verified, and the ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says that women and children make up two-thirds of the dead. Israel says it has killed over 13,000 Hamas operatives since the beginning of the war.
War broke out on October 7 after Hamas terrorists killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostages. Israel’s air and ground offensive has devastated large parts of Gaza and displaced about 80 percent of the population of 2.3 million.
Hamas will take it all. Our guys may parcel it out individually(unlikely) and Hamas will confiscate it fifty yards down the road. And our Politburo knows that. We are resupplying HAMAS and that is the point.
Yeah. You’re right. I’m sure they’ll get a few pinpoint accurate missiles out of that, that’ll definitely kill a few of those evil Jooos!/sarc
Probably a lot of water line pipe in the works as well. I hear that a lot of the pipe from previous shipments has mysteriously gone missing and there is a serious water shortage in the Gaza…. something like that
FYI Should Read. Even though A Lot of people here won’t Like it.
Building a Decent Gaza
by Daniel Pipes
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2024
https://www.meforum.org/65584/to-build-a-decent-gaza
(Snip)
Conclusion
Israel can reasonably expect to find a substantial cohort of Gazans ready to work with it to establish a new authority in Gaza that begins to return them to normal life. These Gazans will take on a wide range of tasks: policing, utilities, municipal services, administration, communications, teaching, urban planning, and so on.
While this may sound like wishful thinking, it bears recalling that Gazans not that long ago led decent lives under Israeli rule. Gaza and the West Bank in the 1970s, recounts historian Efraim Karsh, “constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world—ahead of such ‘wonders’ as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself.” Medicine, electricity, schools, literacy—all flourished. Gazans benefited from refrigerators, clean running water, and much else. Gazans are not immune to the charms of normal life.
Unfortunately, Israel failed to cultivate relations with relatively friendly Gazans and lacked decent Gazan partners in its first period of rule, 1967-2005. Then, in an act of historic stupidity, it handed the territory to the genocidal Yasir Arafat. In a further mistake, it not only permitted the even more horrific Hamas to control Gaza after 2007 but encouraged external funders such as Qatar.
Call the new entity the Revitalized Palestinian Authority if you like, but it must have no connection whatsoever to the execrable Palestinian Authority that rules parts of the West Bank. Nor should Arab or international bodies take part in its administration.
Decent Gaza means tough Israeli military rule overseeing a tough police state along the lines of what exists in Egypt and Jordan, countries where one can lead a normal life so long as one stays out of trouble and never, ever criticizes the ruler. Gaza can become decent, not at war with its neighbor and economically viable. Will Israelis have the acumen and stamina to make this happen? Can they retrieve something positive out of tragedy?
Debunking Ivy League Myths About Israel | Yoseph Haddad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsS3PZqy6xY
Mar. 13 2024
THE SIT DOWN | RUBIN REPORT
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Yoseph Haddad about how media and higher education systems are being infiltrated by anti-Semitic sentiments; how Israel has successfully been a society for Jews and also Arab Israelis like himself; the surprising stats about diversity within Israel; ignored facts that prove that Israel is falsely portrayed as an apartheid state; how Hamas targeted both Jews and Arabs in the October 7 attacks; why Israel must take control of every inch of Gaza to defeat Hamas; and much more.
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