The U.S. military has started moving a pier towards the Gaza coast, a U.S. official said on Wednesday, one of the last steps before the launch of a maritime port promised by President Joe Biden to speed the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

The U.S. military opted to pre-assemble the maritime pier at Israeli port of Ashdod earlier this month due to weather conditions at the Gaza site where it will now be installed.

Officials hope the pier can be anchored to the coast of Gaza and aid can start flowing in the coming days.

“Earlier today, components of the temporary pier … along with military vessels involved in its construction, began moving from the Port of Ashdod towards Gaza, where it will be anchored to the beach to assist in the delivery of international humanitarian aid,” a U.S. official said.

  • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Wtf is even the fucking point? If we’re gonna give Israel the weapons to genocide them with one hand why even bother with this fake bullshit “aid” with the other hand? Is anyone fooled by this?

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      International politics is complicated. Would you actually rather them just let civilians starve to death as well?

      • mlg@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        That is what they are already doing by allowing Israel to keep the border crossings closed.

        This pier is as useless as letting the civilians starve to death because none of that aid will reach them because Israel only agreed to the port if they also get to dictate what goes through.

        ie they built a new a closed on arrival marine aid route that will likely get bombed by the IDF anyway.

        • Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Bombing a US controlled port would be pretty close to a declaration of war against the US. Israel isn’t that dumb.

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Letting them? It’s Israel’s border.

          Yes Israel dictates what’s goes through. Gaza* has proven again and again that they cannot be trusted to just import whatever they want, because the corrupt everything Hamas touched and turn virtually all civilian infrastructure into instrumentalities of terrorism.

          If your neighbor was suicide bombing you and rocket attacking you and mass shooting you, do you think you’d let the UPS truck in to deliver whatever they want? No. You would not. The police would come and if they didn’t surrender they’d level the house.

          But that’s not even what’s happening here. Gaza opened new water desalinization plants just last month. Israel let the materials and personnel in.

          Edit: I should say, Gaza didn’t build new shit, western charity built new water desalinization plants Gaza.

          • mlg@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Yeah man I’m sure Hamas is going to weaponize…

            checks notes

            bottled water, pre-packaged food, and wheat.

            Israel is full blocking aid trucks which they can easily inspect. Even the few they were originally letting through were attacked to scare off NGOs and the UN. Their demand to search the packages is just a ruse they can use to halt the flow.

            There is a ridiculously low chance Hamas has been successful in smuggling anything related to weapons for the past 6 months via the aid.

            Meanwhile the remaining Gazans are starving to death because Israel has already decided all Palestinians are Hamas and must be eradicated from the area.

            The USA could at anytime use its insane MIC leverage to force Israel to let aid in, but they won’t because they see Israel as a prime ally.

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              They haven’t. And that aid is flowing. Aid is going up not down, except for at one port of entry, shut down because it’s a warzone. I don’t know, how about tell us where Hamas is hiding and who their accomplices are, and then everyone who isn’t an insane religious zealot bent on killing Jews because they don’t like the operating hours at various piles of rocks, go about their days?

              The famine has been “imminent” since November and it hasn’t happened. Because aid has been flowing since like day 5.

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Israel is a prime ally and essential to long term stability in the middle east.

              The people in the IDF responsible for the flour massacre and the world kitchen truck are gone. Aid is flowing. And it’s going to rain in from America’s port, bet, mf.

          • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Why do you blame the occupation on the occupied? Do you think the existence of the Warsaw ghettos were the fault of the Jewish prisoners too?

            The escalation in violent resistance to occupation in the OPTs over the decades has been a reaction to the increasing enforcement of the occupation, not the other way around.

            Israel has had control of Gaza with the occupation and blockade since 1967, enforcing policies for the de-development of Gaza’s economy. The Israeli imposed closure on Gaza began in 1991, temporarily, becoming permanent in 1993. The barrier began around Gaza around 1972.

            With the Blockade, Israel controls all the sea, airspace, and border. Fishermen can’t fish outside of 6-12 nautical miles before getting arrested or shot. Israel controls all travel in and out of Gaza. Over 60% of people were already food insecure before October 7th because Israel deliberately restricts food entering Gaza. Israel’s policies of Water control left everyone in Gaza with half the water of the emergency WHO standards, now significantly less. Internationally, Gaza is recognized as Occupied.

            Israel has shut off all food, water, electricity, and aid to Gaza. Because as occupiers they have that power over occupied territories. They’ve also repeatedly targeted refugee camps, hospitals, safe zones, and aid trucks.

            “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly"

            • Minister of Defense - Yoav Gallant

            The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development - Third Edition by Sara M. Roy

            Israel claims it is no longer occupying the Gaza Strip. What does international law say?

            The Gaza Strip − why the history of the densely populated enclave is key to understanding the current conflict

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Wow the rhetoric of Yoav Gallant is so compelling, except none of those things happened. There’s diesel generators all over the place. There are new water treatment plants opening just last month. You got tricked by Qatari news and non profits looking for donations.

              Also, it is a war zone. Maybe don’t let terrorists build tunnels under everything and then nobody will have to blow everything up. 98% of Gaza evacuated and are alive.

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              They could have chosen peace. Nope. Inconcievable.

              Representative government was always a capital offensive. “Western values” were always infidelity to the word of God and the prophet Muhammad. Violence to Israel began before Israel. Violence against Jews in the middle east is as old as recorded history, at the beginning of which the land was occupied by Hebrew speaking people called Judites.

              Muslims could just stfu, have respect for other cultures. They lost in court. Israel exists. Give it a fucking rest, at some point, surrender and move on.

              Nope. Inconcievable. A century of suicide bombers and “Martyrdom.™”

              It’s an indefensible culture. Leave it behind or die with it.

      • EchoCT@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        We are. By letting the idf control what goes through the port, it will do nothing to help. As such we are letting them starve to death and remain facilitation genocide.

      • Xanis@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Look man, the problem with arguing with these people is that they are hard stuck. Biden could tell us exactly what the issue is, take his entire staff to Gaza, put on an apron, and begin filling bowls with soup, and people will be like, “HE ISN’T GRABBING A GUN AND FIGHTING BACK”

        It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tiring and sad.

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      There’s a nonzero chance Israel bombs the pier “accidentally” and then maybe we’ll see some shit.

    • S491@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      It so they can export the natural gas they are going to steal from Gaza

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Israel already has the weapons it is using in Gaza. They get rid of the old stock first. Way cheaper to drop them than decommission then. They already have all the weapons they need to obliterate all of Gaza. They have not done so.