Famine looms but Gaza aid in limbo after ‘chilling’ strike
The Biden Administration is scrambling to finalise essential components of its plan to install a floating pier off the Gaza coast for processing food deliveries and other desperately needed humanitarian aid, as famine looms.
Four Army ships, deployed from southeastern Virginia in mid-March, are due to arrive in the eastern Mediterranean within days. But evolving conditions amid the war have cast new uncertainty over how the effort will play out.
Among the challenges is the precarious security situation in the region, with Iran’s pledge to retaliate for Israel’s deadly strike on a diplomatic compound in Syria raising fears that deployed American personnel face heightened risk. US officials have denied that Washington was involved in the attack, but Tehran maintains that as Israel’s principal supporter, the United States “must be held accountable.”
Another variable is Israel’s recent attack on a World Central Kitchen humanitarian convoy, which killed seven aid workers. While Israel has accepted blame for the strike and said the workers should not have been targeted, the tragedy has complicated US efforts to secure an arrangement for distributing the estimated 2 million meals to be offloaded from the pier daily.
One US official, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about the administration’s internal deliberations, summarised the predicament this way: “We’re building the plane as we fly it.”
The official said there was no doubt the World Central Kitchen tragedy had had a “chilling effect” on aid organisations and Israel now had to regain their trust.
A senior US defence official said the plan for the pier remained unresolved. But Israeli forces have assured US counterparts they will provide significant protection.
The Biden Administration, facing strident criticism over its unflinching support for Israel, has intensified its pressure on Israeli leaders to not only protect civilians in their military campaign but to dramatically increase the amount of food allowed into Gaza.
A failure to heed those demands, the White House has warned, could force a change in US policy toward the war.
The World Health Organisation has warned that parts of the Palestinian enclave could spiral into full-blown famine by May. The classification means that many people have almost no food, bringing about starvation and death.
Officials have said that approximately 1000 US personnel would build the floating pier and a 550m two-lane causeway connecting it to a beachhead secured by the Israel Defence Forces.
No American service members are expected to go ashore, but they will probably be on the causeway, putting them within range of militants’ rockets and other forms of attack. Operations are expected to begin about May 1. Talks with aid organisations on how the pier would be used have been overshadowed by the World Central Kitchen tragedy on April 1, which occurred as the charity’s aid workers were delivering food.
About 200 aid workers have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza since the war began in October, according to the United Nations. The strike on World Central Kitchen was especially jarring because the aid workers had coordinated their route with the Israeli military in advance.
The United Nations is seen as the “primary recipient” and distributor of aid coming off the pier, the senior administration official said, adding that other groups will be welcome to use the pier to bring in their own food but that Israel must regain trust with those organisations after the World Central Kitchen attack.
“There’s no doubt,” the official said, “that the strike … has a chilling effect.”