US troops depart for mission to build Gaza aid port

VIRGINIA – AFP

Four US Army vessels departed a base in Virginia carrying about 100 soldiers and equipment they will need to build a temporary port on Gaza’s coast for urgently needed aid deliveries.

The new facility — which will consist of an offshore platform for transshipment of aid from larger to smaller vessels and a pier to bring it ashore — will be up and running in 60 days, US Army Brigadier General Brad Hinson told journalists.

“Once we get fully mission-capable, we will be able to push up to two million meals, or two million bottles of water, ashore each day,” Hinson said during a press conference at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. “So if you look at the current capability that we have with the aerial delivery right now, you know, we increase that exponentially with what we can do day in and day out with the joint logistics of the shore capability. That’s why we’re bringing in this capability because of the triplet factors that we have with the system that you see behind me.

“We will have soldiers that work on the pier, we will have soldiers that construct the pier. But there won’t be no [sic] soldiers on the ground for the construction – that is a hundred percent true statement. We can construct this pier without having US soldiers to step foot on the beach or on the ground.”

The US has been airdropping aid for the Palestinians in Gaza who have been pushed to starvation by Israel’s attacks coupled with aid blockade. But that has been criticized as too little for more than a million displaced people desperately in need of food and other basic supplies.