{"id":47708,"date":"2024-05-19T06:27:24","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T14:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=47708"},"modified":"2024-05-19T06:27:56","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T14:27:56","slug":"as-us-aid-shipments-begin-gaza-pier-denounced-as-pr-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/19\/as-us-aid-shipments-begin-gaza-pier-denounced-as-pr-move\/","title":{"rendered":"As US Aid Shipments Begin, Gaza Pier Denounced as ‘PR Move’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As humanitarian shipments began trickling into Gaza<\/a> via a U.S.-built temporary floating pier, Palestinians and aid workers on Friday renewed criticism of what they called an expensive and largely ineffectual publicity stunt that is no substitute for a cease-fire and opening of more land crossings into the besieged coastal enclave.<\/p>\n

U.S. Army Central Command said<\/a> that “trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore” at around 9:00 am local time Friday as part of “an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor.”<\/p>\n

The $320 million Trident Pier \u2013 which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore\u2014is expected to eventually accommodate up to 150 trucks per day. According to United Nations agencies, an average of 200 trucks entered<\/a> Gaza each day last month, far fewer than the prewar daily mean of more than 500 truckloads that U.S. and U.N. officials say<\/a> are required to meet the needs of a population facing critical shortages of food, water, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies.<\/p>\n

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However, as famine grips<\/a> northern Gaza \u2013 with malnutrition and dehydration killing<\/a> dozens of people, mostly children \u2013 and at least hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians starve, Israel<\/a> has been accused<\/a> of blocking aid from those who desperately need it and using starvation<\/a> as a weapon of war.<\/p>\n

“We don’t want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety. We want official borders,” Hassan Abu Al-Kass, a forcibly displaced Palestinian man, told<\/a> The New York Times<\/em> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Al-Kass compared the pier to the humanitarian aid airdropped by U.S. and other troops over Gaza, whose officials say<\/a> that more than 20 people have been killed by the parachuting parcels, either by crushing or drowning while trying to reach offshore drops.<\/p>\n

“Those planes, as well, that they bring here with the parachutes, and they throw food at us like dogs, like beggars, that does not work,” he said. “It falls on houses. It falls on people. It brings us problems.”<\/p>\n

One unnamed humanitarian aid worker told<\/a> U.S. investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill: “It’s completely absurd. The solution to the problem here is obvious and we need to end the occupation… Once the siege is lifted, humanitarian aid can roll in. A pier is a PR move.”<\/p>\n

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The fact that the US is establishing a pier off the Gaza coast because the genocidal Israeli government, which the US funds, arms, politically bolsters & shields from international & US law, won’t allow aid into Gaza by land is a damning statement about the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

\u2014 jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) May 16, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n