US builds pier to help flow of aid to Gaza
The US military has finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip.
It means officials are now poised to begin ferrying badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war.
The construction was finished overnight, AP reported, and sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation.
Recently, food and other supplies have fail to make it in to Gaza as Israel recently seized the key Rafah border crossing in its push on that southern city on the Egyptian border.
US troops facilitating aid delivery through the pier will not set foot in Gaza, American officials insist, though they acknowledge the danger of operating near the war zone.
Key events
Five killed and seven wounded in Israeli friendly fire incident
Five soldiers have been killed by friendly fire in Gaza’s north, where intense fighting has resumed more than seven months into the war.
The troops were killed on Wednesday at 7pm local in the area of Jabalia refugee camp, the IDF said in a statement. Seven other troops were wounded in the incident.
The statement read:
Five soldiers of the 202nd Paratrooper Battalion were killed last night in a mass casualty incident as a result of fire by our forces.
It continued:
The shooting consisted of two tank shells. From the initial investigation… it appears that the tank fighters, from the ultra-Orthodox paratrooper company Hetz, identified a gun barrel coming out of one of the windows in the building, and directed each other to shoot at the building.
Here are some of the latest images from photographers on the ground in Gaza:
Fraught with logistical, weather and security challenges, delivering aid via the maritime route and floating pier is designed to bolster the amount of aid getting into the Gaza Strip, AP reports
Crucially, however, it is not considered a substitute for far cheaper land-based deliveries that aid agencies say are much more sustainable.
Boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.
Israeli forces will be in charge of security on the shore, but there are also two US Navy warships near the area in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Paul Ignatius. Both ships are destroyers equipped with a wide range of weapons and capabilities to protect American troops off shore and US allies on the beach.
The first cargo ship loaded with 475 pallets of food left Cyprus last week to rendezvous with a US military ship Off the coast of Gaza. The Pentagon said moving the aid between ships was an effort to be ready so it could flow quickly once the pier and the causeway were installed.
The installation of the pier several miles off the coast and of the causeway, which is now anchored to the beach, was delayed for nearly two weeks because of bad weather and high seas. The sea conditions made it too dangerous for US and Israeli troops to secure the causeway to the shore and do other final assembly work, US officials said.
US builds pier to help flow of aid to Gaza
The US military has finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip.
It means officials are now poised to begin ferrying badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war.
The construction was finished overnight, AP reported, and sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation.
Recently, food and other supplies have fail to make it in to Gaza as Israel recently seized the key Rafah border crossing in its push on that southern city on the Egyptian border.
US troops facilitating aid delivery through the pier will not set foot in Gaza, American officials insist, though they acknowledge the danger of operating near the war zone.
Opening summary
We are restarting the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh has rejected any postwar settlement in Gaza that excludes the group, saying “the movement [Hamas] will decide, along with all national factions, the administration of the Gaza Strip after the war.”
He also blamed Israel for a deadlock in Gaza ceasefire negotiations and said that any agreement must provide a framework for a permanent end to Israel’s offensive in the enclave.
His comments come as a split in Israel’s war cabinet was made public, with the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, challenging prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to come up with plans for the “day after” the war in Gaza, saying he would not permit any solution where Israeli military or civil governance were in the territory.
Here’s a summary of the day’s other main events.
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Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel must do “what is required” in Rafah despite disagreements with its longtime ally the US. The Israeli prime minister, in an interview with CNBC, acknowledged a “disagreement” with Washington over his country’s military offensive in the southernmost Gaza city, but he stood firm that the operation would be necessary.
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The Israeli leader said that it is pointless to “talk about the day after while Hamas is still intact.” “There is only one substitute for victory – defeat. My government will not agree to this,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday, according to Reuters. Netanyahu also repeated his claim that there is not a humanitarian crisis in southern Gaza.
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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Israel must have a clear and concrete plan for the future of Gaza. Blinken, in a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday, said that the US “do not support and will not support an Israeli occupation”, adding that “we can’t have a vacuum in Gaza that’s likely to be filled by chaos.”
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Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, told his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, that Israel’s attack on the Gazan city of Rafah is unacceptable, according to a Turkish diplomatic source. In a call on Wednesday, Fidan also told Blinken that it was important to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible.
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The UN has run out of tents and food to distribute to almost 2 million people in Gaza. UN officials told the Guardian that their warehouses were now completely empty south of the river dividing the northern third of the Gaza from the south, with no likelihood of resupply as long as the main entry points into the territory remain closed after Israeli offensives launched in recent days.
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The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has said it faces “significant disruptions” to its humanitarian operations due to Israel’s recent ground operations in Rafah. In a statement, the organisation said “the closure of the Rafah crossing and a blockade on entry of humanitarian workers and aid, including fuel, [is] critically hindering our ability to deliver essential services and aid to those in desperate need.”
