A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation that the Pentagon has said will cost at least $320 million.

Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters the cost is a rough estimate for the project and includes the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the United States to the coast of Gaza, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.

Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday show the USNS Roy P. Benavidez about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore, where the base of operations for the project is being built by the Israeli military. The USAV General Frank S. Besson Jr., an Army logistics vessel, and several other Army boats are with the Benavidez and working on the construction of what the military calls the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system.

  • natural_motions@lemmynsfw.com
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    7 months ago

    The very fact that we have to airdrop in aid and have to build this stupid pier to begin with tells you that it’s not going to work. It’s a delaying tactic so Biden can pretend he’s doing something.

    This is the kind of shit you do when there’s an enemy force keeping you from bringing aid into a place.

  • jetA
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    7 months ago

    That’s a lot of theater, a lot of effort to try to deliver some aid that could be easily done with The theater belligerent who is getting billions of dollars of military aid from the US directly.

  • PugJesus@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    [US builds the 320 mil platform]

    Israel, ten seconds later: “Sorry, we’ve decided that US ships are a security risk and can’t enter.”

    • livus@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      It’s more subtle than this:

      The new port sits southwest of Gaza City and a bit north of a road bisecting Gaza that the Israeli military built during the current war against Hamas… Now Israeli military positions are on either side of the port…

      In other words they are going to act as a bottleneck the same way they do for the road crossings.

      Meanwhile humanitarian NGOs are all saying the worst famine is in the North. It’s obvious this is just a PR exercise.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    7 months ago

    It would have been much cheaper to just build the pier and not send anything else Israel’s way.

    I’m just saying…

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    7 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    JERUSALEM (AP) — A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation that the Pentagon has said will cost at least $320 million.

    Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters the cost is a rough estimate for the project and includes the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the United States to the coast of Gaza, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.

    Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday show the USNS Roy P. Benavidez about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore, where the base of operations for the project is being built by the Israeli military.

    The area was the territory’s most populous before the Israeli ground offensive rolled through and pushed more than 1 million people south toward the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt.

    Now Israeli military positions are on either side of the port, which initially had been built — as part of an effort led by World Central Kitchen — out of the rubble of buildings leveled by Israel.

    That effort halted after an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 as they traveled in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by Israel.


    The original article contains 909 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    No one with any intelligence believes this pier is for aid. This is 100% for natural gas extraction from the Gaza Marine and Leviathan Fields