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The White House announced, Thursday, that US President Joe Biden will assign his country's army to establish a military port on the coast of the Gaza Strip to deliver urgent humanitarian aid to it by sea.

This was reported by an official at the White House National Security Council, without naming him, during a press conference held by phone, in which he spoke about the recent efforts made by the United States to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

According to the American official, establishing the port will not require American forces on the ground in Gaza, as they will remain in ships off the coast, noting that establishing the port will take weeks and the first shipments will arrive from Cyprus.

He stressed that the temporary port on the Gaza coast will accommodate hundreds of additional loads of aid daily, and that Washington will work with partner countries and humanitarian organizations to operate the temporary port on the Gaza coast, while it will coordinate with Israel regarding the security conditions of the port.

Agence France-Presse quoted an unnamed American official as saying, “We are not waiting for the Israelis. This is a moment (to show) American leadership,” amid growing frustration in the White House due to Israel’s refusal to allow more aid to enter the Strip.

American officials did not specify how the port would operate in the absence of American military personnel on the ground in Gaza, but they implied that “partners and allies,” in addition to the United Nations and relief organizations, would participate in implementing the project.

In this context, a second official told the agency, “The American army has unique capabilities. It can do extraordinary things from abroad, and this is the operational concept that was briefed to the president.”

Agence France-Presse also quoted a third official as saying that the plan “includes the presence of American military personnel on military ships off the coast, but it does not require American military personnel landing on the beach to install the pier or bridge facility.”

Israeli welcome

For its part, Reuters quoted an Israeli official as saying, “We welcome and fully support the American plan for a temporary port” in Gaza to provide humanitarian aid.

The Israeli official added that the development of the Gaza port facility will be in full coordination between Israel and the United States.

Not far from this, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the international community's focus should be on increasing the distribution of aid on a large scale and bringing it into the Gaza Strip by land, but any way to get more aid into the strip is "very good."

Dujarric added that delivering aid by land is more efficient in terms of cost and quantity and that there is a need for "more entry points and we need a larger amount of aid to enter by land."

On the other hand, the European Commission announced that its President, Ursula von der Leyen, will visit Cyprus within days to discuss with officials there about opening a sea corridor to ship humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip via the island, located in the eastern Mediterranean.

Aid landing

On the other hand, the US Central Command said that it carried out an airdrop of aid in the northern Gaza Strip, in partnership with the Royal Jordanian Forces.

The command reported via social media: “US C-130 aircraft dropped more than 38,000 meals providing life-saving humanitarian aid to residents in northern Gaza, to enable civilians to access necessary aid.”

The Central Command confirmed that it will continue to plan other aid landings to Gaza, noting that the landings contribute to Washington's ongoing efforts to alleviate human suffering in Gaza.

American officials pointed out that the landings are a supplement to the insufficient supplies sent by land to Gaza, but the amount of food delivered by air is only sufficient to feed a very small portion of the people in need in the coastal strip that has been devastated by the ongoing war for months.

These developments come at a time when the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that the death toll from the famine had risen to 20 people, including children.

The Ministry indicated that the latest victim was the 3-year-old child, Ahmed Ahil, who died due to dehydration and malnutrition, resulting from the spread of famine in areas of northern Gaza as a result of the restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation forces on the entry of food and medical aid into the Strip.

For his part, the Interim Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territories, James McGoldrick, warned of a dire humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, stressing that hunger there had reached catastrophic levels.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that an increasing number of children in Gaza are dying from hunger and thirst.

She added - in a post on the X platform - that the situation is horrific, and is getting worse with every passing minute and hour.

According to the World Food Programme, “the conflict in Gaza has left the entire population of 2.2 million people in crisis or worse levels of severe food insecurity.”

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies