The USS General S. Frank Besson departed Langley, Virginia (USA) on Saturday, less than 36 hours after US President Joe Biden announced that American forces will join with the Israel Defense Forces to build a temporary dock off the coast of Gaza.
According to the Associated Press, the US Army’s 7th Transportation Brigade and other units were already collecting the necessary equipment even prior to the president’s announcement during his State of the Union address. The orders had been issued prior to the speech.
As many as 1,000 US troops are involved in the project. The ship is carrying logistics equipment to establish a temporary port to enable delivery of humanitarian aid via a maritime corridor.
The aid shipments will first be checked by Israeli inspectors in Cyprus before embarking on the short maritime journey to Gaza, where the aid will be offloaded by American military personnel.
The president and other international partners are convinced that this will not only enable a significant increase in the amount of aid entering Gaza, but that it will also allow the aid to reach Gaza civilians.
To date, much of the aid delivered to the enclave has been hijacked and stolen by Hamas operatives; that which is not taken by Hamas is often looted by others who then sell the supplies that were intended to reach Gaza’s civilians, gratis.
Once the aid reaches the temporary pier, however, it is not clear how the supplies will be distributed to civilians within Gaza.
President Biden artfully managed to avoid addressing that issue — the core issue of the entire problem — one for which Israel has repeatedly, unfairly been blamed.
If trucks are to be used — as they have been thus far — how will these deliveries differ from the truckloads that have delivered the aid up to this point? At least one report has claimed the IDF will be tasked with protecting the deliveries and the drivers.
But why should the IDF have to protect the truck drivers — who have been repeatedly attacked and in at least one case was actually murdered by Gaza “civilians” — when Israel is trying to eliminate the terrorist organization responsible for the problem in the first place?
As for claims that Israel is creating obstacles that are slowing the deliveries “to a trickle” — that is just bunk.
Israeli government spokespersons have encouraged international partners to send as much aid as they can, and point out that the bottleneck is not on the Israeli side of the Gaza border. Israeli inspectors clear everything that is sent, daily; but hundreds of trucks have been seen sitting along the sides of the roads, sometimes for days, waiting for international partners within Gaza to pick it up and distribute it to the civilians who need it.
The other question on the table is this: If in fact the maritime corridor offers a more efficient way of delivering far more aid to Gaza, will Israel still be forced to keep open its land crossings with Gaza? And if so, why, and for how long?
