The Israeli occupation has targeted the port and fishermen in Gaza for years (Reuters)

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, on Friday denounced the United States’ proposal to establish a temporary port in Gaza to transport humanitarian aid by sea to the besieged Strip.

The UN expert said - during a press conference in Geneva - “For the first time I hear someone saying that we need to use a sea pier. No one asked for a sea pier, neither the Palestinian people nor the humanitarian community.”

Since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in October, the small, crowded Strip has been suffering from a food crisis that has been exacerbated by restrictions imposed on the delivery of aid to it.

In his State of the Union address, Thursday, US President Joe Biden ordered his army to establish a temporary port in Gaza.

He stressed that completing this work will not require any deployment of American forces on the ground.

Fakhri described the American proposal as "malicious," pointing out that the United States is at the same time providing bombs, ammunition, and financial support to Israel.

He believed that the American desire to establish a port aims, above all, to respond, with the approaching elections in the United States, to the internal pressures exerted by a part of the Americans.

The expert added that the matter targets a national audience.

He said, "What gives me hope is the increasing movement all over the world, especially in the United States, of people demanding a ceasefire."

chaos

The United Nations warned again last week that famine in the Gaza Strip was "almost inevitable, if nothing changes."

Fakhri said, "We said in the past that famine is imminent, but I think it is fair to say now that Israel has deliberately starved the Palestinian people in Gaza, and that famine is already occurring or is on the verge."

"We started to see children dying from malnutrition," he added.

"We have never seen an entire civilian population driven to hunger so quickly," he continued.

He also pointed out that Israel is destroying the food system in Gaza, pointing to agricultural lands, orchards, and even fishing boats.

While donor countries began dropping relief supplies with parachutes, Fakhri considered that the amount dropped from the air would do little to alleviate hunger and malnutrition and would do nothing to slow the famine, and this could lead to chaos.

He pointed out that countries usually only use airdrops and sea piers to deliver aid to "enemy territory."

Source: Al Jazeera + French