The US military completes Gaza’s humanitarian port

The US military has completed the construction of a temporary artificial port to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip by sea, but it cannot currently be installed at the designated location due to adverse weather conditions, the Pentagon announced yesterday, Tuesday.

Faced with delays and obstacles posed by Israel in delivering humanitarian aid via land routes to the Palestinian enclave, US President Joe Biden announced a plan to build a temporary artificial port in early March.

Construction costs were expected to be approximately $320 million.

“The construction of the two parts of the artificial harbor (…) has been completed,” and now they need to be transported to the site where they will be placed, Sabrina Singh, deputy spokesperson for the US Department of Defense, told accredited journalists.

Yesterday there were “strong winds and high waves”, making it “dangerous” to place these elements in the designated location, she clarified.

The artificial port and US warships involved in the operation to build it “are still in the port of Ashdod” in Israel, she noted.

Due to weather conditions, the work was moved to Ashdod last week. Weather permitting, the port will be placed by Israeli forces on the enclave’s coastline to prevent the deployment of US troops.

Washington also deemed “unacceptable” the closure by Israeli forces of two of the main border crossings through which humanitarian aid enters the enclave, in Rafah and Kerem Shalom, a White House spokesman said.

“The border crossings that are closed must be reopened; it is unacceptable that they are closed,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, according to whom Kerem Shalom is expected to reopen today.

The war broke out on October 7 when members of Hamas’s military wing launched an unprecedented attack from the Gaza Strip on southern areas of Israeli territory, killing 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a count by the French News Agency. on official Israeli data.

Israel’s massive military operation in the Palestinian enclave in the Gaza Strip, with the stated aim of eradicating Hamas, has killed at least 34,789 people, mostly civilians, so far, according to the Palestinian Islamic Movement’s Ministry of Health.