DThe US’s plan to set up a temporary port to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip has met with international approval, but it still needs time to be implemented. U.S. Department of Defense spokesman Pat Ryder said Friday that it was expected to take regarding 60 days for the temporary port to be fully operational. Ryder emphasized that in the meantime, the United States is seeking to significantly expand overland deliveries as the most effective way to get aid to the crisis area. Airdrops of relief supplies also continued.
After more than five months of war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip, 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 . 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.
Independently of the preparation of a temporary port facility on the coast of the Gaza Strip, the international community is working on establishing a maritime corridor through which aid supplies from Cyprus will reach ports near Gaza in Egypt or Israel. “We are now close to opening the corridor – hopefully this Saturday, this Sunday,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday at a meeting with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulidis.
Germany is participating in the maritime corridor. “More help must reach Gaza,” wrote Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) on the X platform (formerly Twitter). That is why Germany supports a maritime humanitarian corridor from Cyprus to Gaza. “This support is urgently needed,” he emphasized.
Deadly aid packages from heaven
Meanwhile, the problem of dropping relief supplies from the air became apparent. A load falling from the sky killed five people on Friday because the parachute did not open properly. The Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas, confirmed this at the request of a dpa employee on site. Videos on social media showed how the large aid package fell to the ground practically unchecked. Several people were also injured. Aid organizations are calling for more effective supplies by land and point out that Israel would prevent trucks from entering the Gaza Strip. Israel denies this and accuses the aid organizations of being inefficient in distributing goods.
Habeck admonishes Israel
The background to the distress in the Gaza Strip is massive bombings and a ground offensive by Israel in the coastal area. The military is reacting to the worst massacre in Israel’s history, in which terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups murdered around 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 in Israel on October 7th. More than 30,000 people have been killed in Israel’s military offensive so far, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority. The information makes no distinction between civilians and armed fighters. However, a large majority of the victims are women, minors and old men.
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