Gaza aid pier ready in two to three weeks: US
Israel faces growing pressure to enable more aid deliveries as the UN warns famine is imminent
The White House said on Sunday that a US-made pier meant to boost aid to Gaza would become operational in a few weeks but cannot replace land routes with trucks as the best way to feed people in the territory.
Israel’s more than six-month war against Hamas in Gaza has triggered a humanitarian crisis, and it faces growing pressure to enable more aid deliveries as the UN warns famine is imminent.
The Pentagon said last week that the US military had begun building a pier to speed up aid deliveries.
“It will take probably two to three weeks before we can see an operation,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Sunday on ABC News.
Kirby said the floating platform to bring more food and other essentials to Gaza will help, but it has limits.
“Nothing can replace, quite frankly, the ground routes and the trucks that are getting in,” Kirby said.
After the killing of seven aid workers in an Israel strike on April 1, which drew international outrage, President Joe Biden bluntly told Israel to change the way it is waging the war.
He said it was imperative that Israel let in more aid and take more pains to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties.
Biden said continued US aid to Israel would depend on such changes being made.
Kirby said Israel is now, in fact, letting in more trucks, including in the particularly
hard-hit north of Gaza.
“The Israelis have started to meet the commitments President Biden asked them to meet,” he said. Plans for the pier were first announced by President Biden in early March, as Israel was being accused of holding up aid deliveries on land.
Kirby also said Israel had agreed to listen to US concerns and thoughts before it launched an invasion of the border city of Rafah in Gaza.
“They’ve assured us that they won’t go into Rafah until we’ve had a chance to really share our perspectives and concerns with them,” Kirby told ABC. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to visit the region next week and Kirby said he would continue pressing for a temporary ceasefire that Washington wants to last for at least six weeks.
A Hamas official said a delegation will visit Cairo on Monday for talks to secure a ceasefire.