US President Joe Biden is expected to announced in his State of the Union Address on Thursday night that he will order American forces to coordinate with the Israel Defense Forces in an “emergency mission” to build a “temporary seaport” for Gaza.
The temporary port is intended to open a maritime route for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza from Cyprus, an option that has been discussed for several months. There is no indication that the US will use the port to allow the Gazans to escape from Gaza, and it appears that for now, the US plans to continue leaving the Gazans trapped there, as Egypt has been doing along its shared border at Rafah.
The decision to build the port was made in order to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Gaza’s civilians and not the Hamas terrorist operatives who have consistently hijacked humanitarian aid trucks and stolen the supplies as soon as they enter the enclave.
“There are no limits — no limits — on the amount of humanitarian aid that can enter the Gaza Strip,” Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy told reporters on Wednesday. “I repeat, none. In fact, Israel is encouraging donor states to send as much food, water, medicine and shelter equipment as they wish and we will facilitate its entry into the Gaza Strip,” Levy said.
“More food trucks are now entering the Gaza Strip than before the war,” he pointed out.
However, as has been seen repeatedly in videos on social media, once the aid enters Gaza the trucks are hijacked by Hamas operatives who then steal the supplies for the terrorist organization, thus depriving Gaza civilians of the aid they were intended to received. What isn’t stolen by Hamas is looted by others who then sell the supplies in the marketplace, often for exorbitant amounts, to the civilians who should have been the recipients, gratis.
Officials said Thursday on a call with reporters that the US would work with the United Nations and other humanitarian aid partners to distribute aid across Gaza once it reaches the seaport.
A senior administration official said the US worked “very closely with the Israelis in developing this initiative.”
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen traveled to Cyprus in December (2023) to work out a deal for a maritime corridor from the island nation to Gaza that would replace the need to transport goods through land crossings with Israel.
At the time, Israel’s foreign ministry called it “an important step on the way to an economic disengagement from the Gaza Strip.”
It’s not really a new idea.
In 2017, then-Transport and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz (Israel’s current foreign minister) proposed that Israel build an artificial island off the Gaza coast with a seaport and electricity and water facilities, to be connected to the enclave via a heavily secured bridge.
The project was seen as a way to complete Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, which took place in 2005 with the expulsion of 22 Israeli communities from the Gaza region of Gush Katif and from northern Samaria. It was believed by Katz and a number of top security officials that the harbor island would finally complete the removal of Israel’s responsibility for the enclave.
Katz proposed that funding for the project, estimated at the time to cost about $5 billion, be provided by international donations.
The project was ultimately shelved, however, due to opposition from then-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.
A source in Washington also said Biden’s State of the Union address was to include a pledge by the president to help Israel fight Lebanon’s Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, but without American boots on the ground.
