It remains to be seen whether the new operation in Ashdod will be more effective than the repeatedly sidelined floating vessel, or if it will assuage concerns among US officials and aid groups who have urged Israel to loosen its stranglehold on those who can enter Gaza by land. A major obstacle is the safety of humanitarian workers responsible for ensuring Palestinians have access to exports, as the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas — and the war’s staggering civilian toll — has crippled supply efforts.
To date, about a million pounds of aid has been moved from Ashtod “as a proof of concept,” Cooper said, with millions more pounds to follow.
He called the aid of 20 million tons in Gaza “the largest humanitarian aid ever” given to the Middle East. Humanitarian groups have classified it as part of what is needed to address the hunger crisis there.
President Biden announced the mission in March, after Israel rejected his and other leaders’ demands that more ground routes be opened for aid deliveries. At the time, Pentagon officials predicted that the floating vessel would help deliver, albeit as a temporary measure. Up to 2 million meals per day. In total, the amount of aid brought overboard was enough to feed half a million people, officials said Wednesday, citing an estimate by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which helps coordinate humanitarian teams working in Gaza. Kazans per month.
Administration officials staunchly defended the deployment, while insisting it would be short-lived.
Biden, speaking during his State of the Union address in March, said the scope of suffering and starvation in Gaza made the U.S. mission a moral imperative, and he insisted no U.S. troops would go ashore — seemingly trying to find a delicate balance between putting The Americans’ brutality and idleness in the famine increased the civilian toll of the war.
Once, the $200 million-plus operation ran into a myriad of complications. Constantly rough seas battered and damaged the structure, forcing repeated shutdowns of operations. Importantly, aid teams expected to distribute food once it reached the ground were reluctant to do so, citing persistent security fears. As a result, incoming cargo piled up in a staging area on the beach, although most of the pending cargo was cleared, officials said.
USAID said in a statement that “several aid workers have been killed in this conflict,” and “the agency continues to urge Israeli leaders to do more to protect civilians and humanitarian workers from getting aid into the hands of the Palestinian people.”
To operate safely, the ship — a floating structure connected to land by a steel catwalk — needs calm seas. While outside of Gaza, it was mostly experienced as the opposite.
Ultimately, the ship operated for more than 20 days, Cooper said. It was last operational at the end of June. After a long trip from a base in Virginia, American personnel began to accept Deliveries were on May 17, a third of the time in service.
USAID top official Sonali Korte said officials were confident the humanitarian mission’s move to Ashdod would be a viable solution, though she acknowledged there would be hurdles.
“The main challenge we have in Gaza right now is around insecurity and lawlessness, which is preventing the delivery of aid once it gets into Gaza and to the crossing points,” he told reporters.
At a news conference last week, Biden said he was “disappointed that some of the things I’ve put forward haven’t been successful.” Of the floating ship in particular, he said, “I’m sure it will be even more successful.”
The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a frequent critic of the president, Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.) captured the announcement Wednesday. The mission, he said, was “a national disgrace”.
Wicker and other GOP lawmakers have warned since its inception that the ship’s deployment, along with the roughly 1,000 troops needed to build and operate it, would provide an opportunity to strike U.S. adversaries in the region. Those fears are unfounded.
In a statement, the senator said it was “a miracle that no American lives were lost in this devastating action at the outset.”
