As more images emerge from the Gaza Strip of scrawny, starving children and desperate adults, pressure grows on Israel and indirectly on the United States, Israel’s most important ally, to help the suffering population or at least give foreign aid workers the opportunity to do so. propose to do that. US President Joe Biden therefore came on Thursday during his annual State of the Union Address with a new remarkable plan. EU countries, including the Netherlands, are now also promising action.
1 What does Biden’s plan entail?
President Biden announced Thursday evening that the US military will establish a temporary port at a site along the Gazan coast to bring more humanitarian aid through Cyprus. According to UN officials, some 576,000 Gazans are currently suffering from hunger and the rest of the 2.3 million residents are also facing severe food shortages. There is also hardly any drinking water. The intention is now to build a floating pier, along which larger ships can dock with significant amounts of assistance. Israel said it supported this operation. It will already inspect aid supplies in Cyprus, which also plays a central role in the operation. Sigrid Kaag, the former Dutch minister who coordinates humanitarian aid on behalf of the UN, welcomed the US initiative but underlined that more aid via the land route would be much faster and more effective.
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2 To what extent does this help Gazans?
That is still uncertain. The US estimates that it will take another thirty to sixty days to construct the pier. The first American ships with engineering troops and equipment have yet to leave the US. It is also unclear how the aid will then reach the distressed civilians of Gaza. The situation is particularly dangerous in the north of the Gaza Strip, where there is the greatest need. Infrastructure has also been destroyed elsewhere in the Gaza Strip and fierce fighting is often still taking place. But Biden said he wanted to leave the provision of aid to the UN and other aid workers. He does not want to use American soldiers for that.
However, aid on a smaller scale will soon arrive by boat from Cyprus. Israeli officials confirmed opposite The New York Times that ships would sail to Gaza this Friday with the help of the United Arab Emirates after inspection in Cyprus. The cargo would be brought ashore there by smaller boats, after which existing employees of World Central Kitchen, the organization of Spanish-American chef José Andrés, would take care of further distribution. Several European countries, including the Netherlands, also want to send aid to Gaza via Cyprus. announced the European Commission on Friday. That could possibly start this weekend. It remained unclear how the distribution on land would take place.
3 Why is Biden taking this approach?
The pressure to provide assistance has increased in recent weeks. Yet Israel – to the annoyance of the US and others – still only allows aid at a sluggish pace, because it says it wants to ensure that this aid does not benefit Hamas. Nearly two thousand trucks are waiting outside the Gaza Strip for the green light to deliver their aid supplies. However, when a convoy carrying flour arrived at Gaza City last week for the first time since January 23, it turned into a bloodbath. Desperate, hungry Gazans stormed the trucks, and Israeli soldiers opened fire. In total, more than a hundred people were killed, some trampled, others shot.
Not only Israel came under increasing pressure, this also applied to Biden. He received increasing criticism, especially from the Democratic camp, that he made too little effort to force Israel into a ceasefire. Some therefore refused to vote for him in the primaries for the Democratic candidate for president. This is one of the reasons for Biden to do something concrete quickly. That happened in the last few days food drops above the Gaza Strip, but only tens of thousands of people could be helped along this route at a time. The new port would make much more aid possible at the same time, although American officials also acknowledge that aid via the land route would be much more efficient.
4 Is there still a chance of a truce?
The population would be better served by a ceasefire than with a temporary port. However, the indirect negotiations on this between Israel and Hamas, assisted by Qatar, Egypt and the US, have again reached a standstill. The Hamas delegation left Cairo for Qatar on Thursday empty-handed. According to American negotiators, the breaking point is that Hamas demands a definitive ceasefire, while Israel is at most in favor of a temporary truce. The hope of reaching an agreement before the start of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, around this weekend, is therefore over. gone for the time being.