Doubts have risen about US intention in building a temporary port in Gaza on whether it is to facilitate aid transfer to Gazans or pave the way for their forceful exile from their own lands.
US media reports on this Monday indicated that a US military ship is set to travel to the coast of the besieged Gaza Strip. The aim is to build a temporary port aimed at facilitating aid transfer to nearly two million Gazans who are prone to famine due to the Israel-Hamas war that is now more than five months old.
“The General Frank S. Besson left its base in the US on Sunday, a little more than a day after US President Joe Biden’s announcement, carrying the first equipment to establish a temporary pier to deliver vital humanitarian supplies”, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Monday.
But the Biden administration has been so supportive of Israel during these five months of war that it is now a bit difficult to believe the US building a port in Gaza just to help them get the vital aid they need for their survival. Ironically enough, the US was among the few countries that cut funding of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Moreover, Israel has always refused during the time of Gaza war to facilitate the delivery of vital food aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza and has even opened fire at people seeking aid. Israeli have also been opposed to Palestinians receiving any form of aid even from international bodies. According to the results of a newly-conducted poll in Israel, nearly 70 percent of Israelis agreed with the idea that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank should not be allowed to get access to any form of aid even as Gazan children are starving.
Washington can’t do any good to Gazans!
Addressing the US suspicious intention about why it plans to build a port in Gaza, Mohammed al-Masri, from the Palestinian Center for Research and Strategic Studies says that “if the US was serious [about delivering aid], it would have pressured Israel into opening the land crossings and allowing aid and relief in as well as stopping the onslaught. We have not heard Biden call for a stopping of the war or even a ceasefire.”
Suggesting that the US motivation for building the port is not to help transfer aid to Gaza but to facilitate the deportation of Gaza’s population by ship, Hisham Khreisat, a Jordanian military and strategic affairs expert believes that “the floating port off the shores of Gaza is a humanitarian facade hiding migration of Palestinians from Gaza to nowhere.”
He also added that “this military tactical port will receive Israeli approval because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking this idea since the beginning of the war, aiming for the displacement of Gazans.”
Moreover, while US officials continue to claim that they wish to build the port to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the BBC noted in a report this Monday that the port would take at least 60 days to build and that “charities have said those suffering in Gaza cannot wait that long.”
“If the US wished to stave off famine in Gaza, it could simply use its leverage as Israel’s leading supplier of weapons to force Tel Aviv to allow more aid to enter by truck convoys through existing land crossings,” the report further said.
