Biden orders the US military to establish a port in Gaza to provide humanitarian aid

US President Joe Biden will announce to Congress on Thursday that he has ordered the US military to establish a port in Gaza to deliver more humanitarian aid by sea to the Palestinian territories besieged by Israel, according to reports from senior officials.

• Read also: The Hamas government says that Israel has returned dozens of exhumed bodies to Gaza

• Read also: Gaza: Khan Yunis turns into ruin

• Read also: Discussion of the truce: The Hamas delegation leaves Cairo and negotiations resume next week

“Tonight, the president will announce in his State of the Union address that he has ordered the US military to conduct an emergency mission to establish a port in Gaza,” a senior US official told reporters.

He added that this port should be able to accommodate large ships carrying “food, water, medicine and temporary shelter.”

“The main component will be a temporary dock,” he added, and this port will provide capacity equivalent to “hundreds of additional aid trucks per day.”

Senior officials said that this operation “will take several weeks to plan and implement,” and is expected to include a sea corridor to bring aid by sea from the island of Cyprus.

• Listen to the interview with Remy Landry, retired lieutenant colonel and professor at the University of Sherbrooke, via QUB :

They stressed that this does not mean that American forces will be on site in Gaza.

“The US Army has unique capabilities. “They can do extraordinary things from the sea,” another official said.

The announcement, which came on the day of the president's key State of the Union address, underscores the pressures Joe Biden faces regarding US support for Israel, in light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The United States and Jordan carried out a third airdrop of aid to Gaza within a week on Thursday, but the effectiveness of the drops was limited.

According to the United Nations, famine is “almost inevitable” for some 2.2 million Gazans, the vast majority of the population, where humanitarian aid currently only reaches in small quantities.