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TEL AVIV/GAZA (dpa-AFX) – The Israeli army has agreed to coordinate with US forces the construction of a temporary shipping pier on the Mediterranean coast of the Gaza Strip. Humanitarian aid could then reach Gaza by sea after appropriate inspection by Israel, said military spokesman Daniel Hagari at a press conference on Saturday evening. International organizations would then take over the distribution of the relief supplies. Regardless, the war against the Islamist Hamas will continue until its military capabilities are destroyed, he added.
The US government announced on Thursday that it would set up a temporary port to bring food, water and medicine to the war zone in view of the humanitarian emergency in Gaza. It will take around 60 days until this is operational, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense said on Friday.
The humanitarian situation of the people in Gaza has been deteriorating dramatically for weeks. UN officials recently warned of thousands of civilians starving to death in the Gaza Strip. The war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist Palestinian organizations on October 7th in Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip./gm/DP/mis